All key facts verified against BBC/Yahoo, Bristol Flyers, Newcastle Eagles, Hoopsfix and the Lions’ own announcement. I corrected two errors in the earlier draft on file (a misattributed Lions quote, and an unverified broadcast/venue claim, both now dropped or replaced with sourced material).
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Super League Basketball’s third season tips off at the SGS College Arena on Friday night, where Bristol Flyers host champions London Lions at 19:30. Twenty-four days later the same Lions squad walks out at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon, to face the Trail Blazers – the first British club ever to play an NBA team.
Those two fixtures, three weeks and 4,700 miles apart, frame the question hanging over British basketball this winter: can a domestic league rebuilt from the wreckage of administration in 2024 hold on to a champion that has outgrown it?
A first for British basketball
The Lions arrive at the start line having won everything there was to win. Last season they took the SLB Championship, the play-offs, the Cup and the Trophy – a domestic quadruple – on top of back-to-back league titles. That record earned them a second straight season in the BKT EuroCup and, on 12 October, a place on Portland’s official NBA pre-season schedule, tipping off at 13:00 local time, 21:00 BST.
The symmetry is hard to miss. London are coached by Tautvydas Sabonis, whose father Arvydas spent seven seasons with the Trail Blazers and remains a franchise icon in Oregon.
“I’m excited to be playing a pre-season game against an NBA team, and all the more so against the Portland Trail Blazers in Portland, a city that holds a lot of meaning for me and my family,” Sabonis said.
Lions chief executive Lenz Balan put it more bluntly: “I’ve wanted to be in the NBA since I was six years old. This is the closest I’ve ever been.”
No British side has been handed that stage before. The old British Basketball League, which ran from 1987 until its operating licence was terminated in May 2024, never came close.
Ten teams, 36 games, one new city
Behind the headline, the league itself has changed shape. Liverpool Basketball, owned by media executive Jason Dolan through Kings Dock Sports Group, becomes SLB’s tenth franchise and returns top-flight professional basketball to the city, playing out of the M&S Bank Arena on the waterfront.
Expansion has forced a rewrite of the calendar. All ten clubs now meet four times – twice home, twice away – across a 27-week regular season of 36 games each, a significant step up from last year’s nine-team format.
Newcastle Eagles owner Paul Blake, one of the few figures to have run a British club through the BBL’s collapse and the new league’s founding, is unequivocal about what that has produced.
“The league is just getting more and more competitive all the time,” Blake said. “The quality of players is, for me, pretty much the highest level it’s been. I’ve been involved for 30 years now and it’s definitely the most competitive it’s been.”
His own club has acted on that belief, prioritising the domestic title in what is the Eagles’ 30th anniversary season. Newcastle open at home to Bristol at the Vertu Motors Arena on Friday 25 September, the first of three straight home games.
The recruitment market backs Blake up. London have brought in Keenan Evans, a 2025-26 EuroLeague winner, on loan – the kind of signing SLB clubs could not have contemplated two years ago. Manchester Basketball, meanwhile, are in the Fiba Basketball Champions League, giving the league two clubs in continental competition.
The bigger game being played
The competitive argument matters more than usual because of what is happening above the league. EuroLeague is pushing towards a 24-team franchise model for 2027-28 in response to the NBA’s planned European competition, and London is the market everyone wants. The Lions have declared themselves candidates.
EuroLeague chief executive Chus Bueno confirmed that interest in July but was withering about the domestic product, calling SLB “not as competitive as other European domestic leagues” and adding: “If you tell top talent that you’re going to play in a small college arena, 800 people, it’s not very compelling.”
He was describing venues much like the one hosting Friday’s opener. And the assessment carries a consequence: securing a EuroLeague licence could require the Lions to leave SLB altogether, stripping out the champions, the biggest market and the league’s most visible export in a single move.
Three things will define the season:
- Whether the chasing pack – Leicester Riders, Caledonia Gladiators, Sheffield Sharks and a Newcastle side built for a domestic push – can turn Blake’s claim into results against a squad that lost nothing last year
- Whether Liverpool’s arrival at a genuine arena, rather than a sports hall, changes what SLB can offer players, sponsors and broadcasters
- Whether London are still in the league when the play-offs are decided
The Lions begin their defence in Bristol on Friday. Portland, and everything it represents, comes later.
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Sources: [Yahoo/BBC Sport](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/lions-set-nba-test-british-145851174.html), [Bristol Flyers](https://www.bristolflyers.co.uk/mens-first-team/super-league-basketball-2026-27-schedule-and-competition-format-revealed/), [Newcastle Eagles fixtures](https://newcastle-eagles.com/news/2026-27-mens-super-league-basketball-fixtures/), [Hoopsfix – EuroLeague bid](https://www.hoopsfix.com/2026/07/london-lions-euroleague-franchise-bid-slb-exit-possibility/), [London Lions](https://www.thelondonlions.com/news/london-lions-to-make-history-against-portland-trail-blazers-in-nba-preseason), [Kings Dock Sports Group](https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/kings-dock-sports-group-limited-launches-liverpool-basketball-as-super-league-basketballs-newest-franchise-returning-top-tier-professional-basketball-to-liverpool-302842901.html)
Two notes: word count is 739. The brief’s “Friday” opener was **18 September** — today is the 20th, so if this publishes now the framing needs flipping to past tense; I kept the brief’s forward-looking voice as specified.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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