Update surrounding the Cheshire franchise in the BBL

Following on from yesterday’s events, the organisation in charge of running the franchise of Cheshire Jets made this statement online today.

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that the Cheshire Jets can officially announce that they will no longer be in the British Basketball League for the 2012/2013 season.

With just 3 weeks before the season started, Jets, and BBL, fans were shocked and pleased to hear that the club had been taken over and were in fact still part of the league.

The Jets started off this season with a tough undertaking, getting a team on the court, and to get financial backing from businesses and other means.

This proved to be a huge task, and with the economic climate still unstable and with limited resources, has lead to the decision to close down the Cheshire Jets for this year.

There has been much deliberation about ways in which the club can go forward and finish the 2012/2013 season, but no viable option has come into the picture, and therefore has forced owner Haydn Cook into this decision.

“I know what the tradition of the Jets means to our volunteers and sponsors, and it is with a heavy heart that I have to put things on hold for the 2012/2013 season.”

The Cheshire Jets are a well known name in the BBL, and have a strong junior following, and the Jets are intending to keep involvement with the local community.  The Cheshire Jets Foundation will continue to function within Cheshire, as we feel it is vital for development of basketball, and will be putting on various events across the county to encourage participation and help contribute to the Olympic Legacy for Great Britain.

The Jets have run an extremely successful Summer Basketball Camp for many years, and we would like to assure fans and participants, that, as of this time the Cheshire Jets Summer Camp 2013 will go ahead.

The Jets are going to put everything into building up a team for the BBL 2013/2014 season and hope to bring back professional basketball to Cheshire.We desperately hope that the fans, volunteers and people who have been involved with the Jets over the years will continue to watch for further news of the return of the Cheshire Jets.

The BBL have yesterday afternoon announced the withdrawal of the Cheshire franchise licence.

The following statement was found on their website.

The BBL have withdrawn the Cheshire franchise from its operating company with immediate effect.

The decision follows an urgent review of the franchise following notification from the club that they were unable to fulfil their fixture this weekend.

The BBL is currently exploring a number of options to ensure the continuation of the franchise. It is anticipated there will be a further announcement in the coming days.

Yesterday afternoon, we also received the following statement, sent on behalf of Haydn Cook.

It is with a heavy heart that the Cheshire Jets are forced to pull out of the BBL.
Due to financial circumstances and various struggles to obtain substantial sponsorship in the short period of time that the Jets have been given.

Just like to thank you for all your help and hard work over the last few weeks and throughout your time at the Jets, without your unquestionable loyalty and support would not have got as far as we have.

Your continued support is heart-warming.

We had a rough start to the season, but we were lucky to have even started. We managed to get a team on the court and found it hard in such a short period of time to find financial backing from local businesses.

This has taken its toll, and obviously with the current climate and financial hardship, we have no other viable option than to close down the Cheshire Jets.

It is a great shame to Cheshire and the British Basketball that it has come to this.

We hope that in the future the Cheshire Jets will be able to come back into the BBL and that the team would still have your continued support and backing that has proved so invaluable over the past years.

All that leaves to say is that, thank you.

Alec Doyle, of the Chester Chronicle, also reported from Cook:

I tried, I had a lot of support, particularly from our sponsor, Terry Hearfield, who has been fantastic, but in the end the costs just didn’t add up. Given a couple of years we maybe could have made it work but I could not keep it going for that long.

I would like to keep the foundation running and maybe build the club back up in some form. If we can get the whole community behind it then in a few years perhaps we can look again at a BBL franchise, but we need to build up a lot of cash reserves if that is what we want to do.