1996–97 British Basketball League season a bye into Quarter-finals. Birmingham Bullets vs. Leicester Riders Leopards vs. London Towers Thames Valley Tigers vs. Chester Jets Worthing Bears vs. Sheffield Sharks Chester Jets vs. Leicester Riders Sheffield Sharks vs. London Towers 1996–97 British Basketball League season The 1996–1997 BBL season was known as the Budweiser League for sponsorship reasons. The league retained a total of 13 teams, playing 36 games each. The main change featured the long-awaited return of Crystal Palace after several seasons of rejected applications. Palace replaced Doncaster Panthers following the liquidation of the South Yorkshire club. The League's two London-based teams dominated throughout the
British Basketball League breaking crowd of 14,700 in attendance. The British Basketball League and Basketball England announced in June 2014 the launch of the Women's British Basketball League, the top-level women's basketball league in Great Britain as a counterpart to the BBL. The league signed a 32-game broadcast deal with BBC which saw both British Basketball League and Women's British Basketball League games broadcast via the BBC Sport website. The three main finals (Cup, Trophy, and Play-Off) would also be broadcast on the BBC Red Button. In September 2016, the league agreed a six-year deal with Perform, the leading digital sports content and