Current season, competition or edition: 2014–15 British Basketball League season |
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The BBL Cup logo
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Sport | Basketball |
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Founded | 2003 |
Country | United Kingdom |
Continent | FIBA Europe (Europe) |
Most recent champion(s) |
Newcastle Eagles (3rd title) |
Most titles |
Sheffield Sharks & Newcastle Eagles (3 titles) |
Related competitions |
BBL Championship BBL Trophy |
The British Basketball League Cup, often shortened to the BBL Cup, is an annual cup competition for British basketball teams organised by the United Kingdom's top professional league, the British Basketball League. It is one of two peripheral competitions operated by the League during the regular season, with the other being the BBL Trophy. The competition is usually played as a single game knock-out tournament, and is only contested by members of the British Basketball League. The final takes place in early January at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.
The competition was established in 2003 following the British Basketball League's (BBL) decision to withdraw its members from the annual National Cup tournament after a disagreement regarding import-players merged with its organiser, the English Basketball Association (EBBA). The EBBA had introduced a ruling that teams could field only two work-permit holders and one other non-permit-holding import in National Cup games for the 2003-04 season, which would have severely deprived the BBL team's of their better players. Due to a sponsorship deal with confectionery company Haribo, the new competition was named the Haribo Cup and saw all ten BBL clubs compete in a single game knock-out format. Sheffield Sharks were crowned as the Cup's first victor's after an 83-70 win over Scottish Rocks at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena. Rocks were again finalists, and Runners-up, in the 2005 edition of the Cup which had been rebranded with its current name as the BBL Cup and was won by Brighton Bears, who had been hugely successful in the predecessor competition, the National Cup, in recent years. In 2006, Newcastle Eagles claimed a historic win over London Towers as part of their "clean-sweep" of all four BBL competitions in their quadruple-winning season.