Basketball body starts sponsor hunt
The National Basketball Association UK (NBA UK) is aiming to attract strategic partners in the telecoms and food industries to exploit the teenage and young adult market.
The NBA claims basketball is already the second most popular sport for tento 17-year-olds, with about 900,000 children playing regularly.
The organisation already has high-profile partnerships with Budweiser, Sprite and McDonald’s, but its pan-European association with Kellogg has recently ended after the cereal company repositioned Tony the Tiger and its Frosties brand.
One of the ideas to raise the profile of the game is to create a national basketball tour which will have a headline sponsor and target teenagers and young adults in the 15 to 22 age group.
Phil Hayes-Brown, managing director of NBA UK, says: “Basketball is a sport that is on the national curriculum. However, there are only a limited number of places where children can play outside school – it still needs to be developed at grass-roots level.
“This is a great sport for sponsors looking for a new platform to raise awareness of their products in the youth market.”
The London NBA office opened in September 1995 and is also responsible for the promotion of the game in Ireland, Scandinavia and South Africa.
