As basketball continues to explode in popularity across Aotearoa, one of Basketball New Zealand’s (BBNZ) key challenges has been to meet the rising demand for resources – including facilities, equipment, coaches and volunteers – placed upon the basketball sector, in particular for the 35 associations around the country.
To help understand this demand and where help is needed most, BBNZ Facilities and Insights Lead, Dan Dawick says that the collection and analysis of participation data and integration of new technology has been vital.
“We know that basketball is now the most played sport at secondary school level – ahead of rugby, cricket, football and other sports – and we believe it has the highest overall participation rates out of any sport in the motu. But we can’t validate this without accurate data, and we can’t provide the resources to where it’s needed most,” says Dawick.
With data continuing to be an integral part of any organisation, a number of basketball associations across the country have embraced the technology solutions provided by BBNZ. The collection of this participation data has helped to shape the different offerings for basketball participants, whilst ensuring they are keeping up to date with who’s playing the game and when.
One association that has made significant progress in this field is Harbour Basketball. With close to 7,000 registered members, Harbour has made it clear just how popular basketball has become in the northern reaches of Tāmaki Makaurau.
Harbour Basketball CEO, John Hunt says the capturing of information has become crucial in order to garner the support they require to provide their services.
“The collection of accurate data is an essential part of us being able to accurately target support for the development of the game across all genders, ethnicities and locations. Game Day has become an major tool for us as we design programmes that facilitate basketball development,” says Hunt.
To streamline competition management processes, an integration has been implemented between GameDay and award-winning video engagement platform, Glory League. This has enabled several associations to automate the scoring of their fixtures and competition management, allowing them to go paperless.
Harbour Basketball Registration Manager, Cairo Kotuhi says the integration between GameDay and Glory League has been invaluable, saving a significant amount of time previously spent on manual administrative tasks.
“The integration has helped us immensely. In the past we’d have to register individual members on Glory League and manually link them to their team, which would involve a huge amount of manual input. All members now receive their video and stats directly from Glory League, incentivising them to self-register into the platform,” says Kotuhi.
“It also means we’ve been more punctual with our game start times, avoiding the mad rush before games trying to enter player details ourselves.”
To help implement and streamline the registration process, Harbour Basketball has also utilised new technology to ensure the process is as simple as possible for their members. This includes a registration stall at all venues, using QR codes linked to registration forms which enabled members to easily complete online forms and register.
“We now have QR codes set up and available at our venues to assist members with the registration process,” says Kotuhi.
Glory League CEO, Grant McCabe commended Harbour Basketball on their achievements to date.
“The data accuracy Harbour Basketball are achieving with GameDay not only streamlines our processes, but also enhances the overall experience for participants and everyone at Harbour basketball. It’s helping us ensure that Glory League is getting out to the basketball community so they can relive all their amazing basketball experiences,” says MaCabe.
And thanks to GameDay’s new business intelligence tool, GameDay View, every affiliated association now has a live view into a number of different participation analytics. This will allow them to easily track specific participant details, improving their ability to make informed decisions around different programme offerings for their members.
Dawick says that having associations such as Harbour, Canterbury and Franklin driving change is starting to influence others and their attitude towards data collection.
“Having strong advocates in the community such as John (Hunt) and James Lissaman (Canterbury Basketball) is starting to show others just how impactful and influential accurate participation data can be – and how it can help resource the game for all participants.
“Being able to effectively communicate with members, understand who their members are and how they can better shape their offerings is a clear example of what best practice should look like. We want to see more of our members following the lead and example set by the likes of Harbour and Canterbury.”
