Building British Basketball Culture on TikTok with Jamie Furness

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On this episode of Tea Time, Brian Bosché and Skylar Smith are joined by Jamie Furness, a British Basketball influencer on TikTok and student studying the history of basketball in the UK. They chat with Jamie about the different eras of British Basketball, how he is using TikTok to educate a new generation of fans, and the best ways he thinks basketball can continue to grow in the UK.

Full Transcript:

Brian Bosche:
Hey, everyone, welcome back to High Tea Hoops.

Skylar Smith:
High Tea Hoops.

Brian Bosche:
Thank you, Skylar, it was a little delayed, we missed the mark a little but that's all right. I'm Brian Bosche, the Duke of Hoops, and I am joined by Skylar, what's up Duchess?

Skylar Smith:
Hello, I'm back here on the pod again to learn with the audience once again just like with the sports last week.

Brian Bosche:
I'm a huge TikTok guy. You made your first couple of videos on TikTok, I've been impressed, any thoughts there? No, okay, we'll go into it.

Skylar Smith:
Thank you.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, you're welcome. Today we are so excited to bring on Jamie Furness. Jamie, I'm going to call you a British Basketball TikTok influencer. You are an influencer; you have a very popular TikTok account.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, very popular, not many of it, so.

Brian Bosche:
And welcome to the show.

Jamie Furness:
Thank you very much, thank you for having me.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I'm excited to go into this a little bit. British Basketball, TikTok, a bunch of my loves all coming together. So if we just want to kick off, do you just want to give a little bit of a background on yourself and kind of what you do?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, of course, so I'm Jamie, I'm 22 and I study history mainly, that's my first kind of passion, what I want to go forward with, but of course, my main love, my recreation is basketball. And if you're with who I am and what I've done, then you know that I kind of put the two together, and recently, I've started looking at factors that are build into why and how British Basketball is developed the way it is. And yeah, that's kind of what I do, that's my niche.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I love it, and it's your niche guy, I'm a niche guy, Skylar makes fun of me all the time for that, but that's all right.

Skylar Smith:
I'm a niche girl, I'm with you, Jamie, it's wrong.

Jamie Furness:
I'm niche, yeah.

Brian Bosche:
I know it's wrong, I can't help it though, I always say niche. But before we get into the history and the TikTok, we've talked a lot about players growing up in the UK playing basketball. So just want to go through kind of how you got into playing basketball in the first place in the UK.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, so it's a really weird one, I mean, I've always had a vested interest because my uncle is my absolute idol and he has always loved to play basketball, so I've always had a vested interest. But as a kid, growing up in England, as you can imagine, I grew up playing football. And it wasn't until about 17 or 18, I used to clean my school sports hall. Well, they used to give me two hours to do it and I could get it done in much less than that. And I thought, "Well, I'll start throwing a ball around." And I went home and I thought, "Well, I wonder who tallest player ever was and how good they were it into 2K. So I watched, I believe it was Troy then, he did a video on Bol Bol. And then I thought, "Okay, what about shortest?" So I watched the Muggsy Bogues' video. And then from that, it's been absolutely down here.

Jamie Furness:
All throughout my life in basketball career, I've been blessed with opportunity. And I started working as a teaching assistant at that school and I was blessed to be able to coach and learn alongside one of my teachers. And then, went to Anglia Ruskin University and I've been on [inaudible 00:02:54] of opportunity for my coaches and in the institution. So yeah, I mean, it's been a short introduction and short career in basketball so far, but of course, I've loved every second of it.

Brian Bosche:
So 17, it's so late, it still shocks me. So what were some of the barriers that you had or what was your exposure before 17 to basketball? Was always just kind of in the distance as a sport just out there that you're not interested?

Jamie Furness:
I think, and I think this is what a lot of people and a lot of young people encounter, so basketball is a sport that you play in PE and it's a sport that you go down to a football goal and there's a basketball hoop above it on the metal ones. I think that's a lot of people's getting that kind of introduction to basketball, it's always, "Oh, well, we can't play football, what other games are there to play? Well, let's go down to the park and see what it is." And in my city, there's a couple of basketball hoops. And I think before 17, kind of my interactions with basketball outside of the London Olympics were very much, "Oh, well, I've got PE today and we're doing basketball."

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, well, it shocks me because playing football out on a pitch, out in the rain and the cold, it sounds awful. Basketball is warm, it's in gym.

Jamie Furness:
It is, but I think therein lies a lot of the issues. Of course, I could go down to any park in the country, bring any ball, two jumpers, and there you go, you've got a game. But whereas with basketball, it's such a specific requirement. I mean, yes, you can play on grass with an eight-foot basket and a rim that square, but of course, that's not the point. Basketball it's such a fine motor skill game, not saying that football isn't, but of course, it's a game of such fine margins, to start playing with different apparatus curve undermines the way that we practice.

Brian Bosche:
Yes, that makes a lot of sense. And just for the audience to just kind of solidify your ground on the podcast, what's your BBL team?

Jamie Furness:
So East London, living in S6 and [inaudible 00:04:57], I'm about half an hour on the train away, and what better arena in the country is there than the Copper Box? Yeah, I've had the privilege to play there once and it was such an experience, it was amazing.

Brian Bosche:
Wow, that's really cool.

Skylar Smith:
What have you thought of their season so far?

Jamie Furness:
Slow, but of course, I think the amount of talent that they've brought in and some of the personalities, of course, the Andrew Lincolns and Kevin have played at really high levels in the United States, of course. I think coming over to America, and I think a lot of this is the attitude, they think possibly that it's a completely different game and maybe they try to play a very specific way, less a bit more, "Let's put five great players on the court and see what happens." But of course, we see it for our sporting history, we saw it with Leicester in the Premier League 2011 Mavericks. It's a case of fit, and that's why you see people like on Newcastle always doing so well because they had Fab Flournoy playing for them for 20 years, and stuff like that. But London's my BBL team.

Brian Bosche:
Before we get on TikTok, are you that active on Twitter? Have you seen the Kevin Ware, Tom Bonnet beef?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, I have seen Kevin Ware. I also saw Kevin Ware say that he's going to retire at the end of this year.

Skylar Smith:
What?

Brian Bosche:
He said that on Twitter?

Jamie Furness:
Okay, a few weeks ago, and I don't know if it's him just tweeting and doing that, but he said something like, "Yeah, this is definitely my last year playing ball."

Skylar Smith:
That man is just so bored and locked down, he is just boring, and this I swear.

Brian Bosche:
I want to see more Kevin Ware, that might be a pandemic frustration tweet, like, "This is the last COVID test I'm going to go through." Kevin, if you're listening, which we know you are because everyone listens to this-

Skylar Smith:
We know you tune in every week.

Brian Bosche:
... keep playing, we love playing you.

Skylar Smith:
Yeah, Jamie, I'd love to hear more about what made you want to actually study sports history. Because I took a sports history class in uni and I was amazed by how much... I think I went into it excited, but I definitely didn't really understand the can of worms I was opening, and how deep you can go in sports history, and sports politics and stuff. So what made you want to originally want to study sports history?

Jamie Furness:
Well, can of worms is entirely the right phrase. Of course, I think the answer for me has three parts. So first of all, history, I chose history because I think a lot of people perceive history as the art of recalling dates, and listing battles and listing Kings, but of course, it's not that. History is the history of the people, the things that people like us three decide to do, it's looking at culture, it's looking at music. So history, for me, is also the art of the baiting and the art of arguing, and that's so beautiful, it's to be able to create 1000 words, really, detailing why you're passionate about something, why you believe X instead of Y.

Jamie Furness:
History, for me, isn't just, "Oh, well, this what happening in that thing." So secondly, I guess, why sports history? Well, sport is my passion, any sport I'll get behind, history is my passion, makes sense to put the two together, doesn't it? And thirdly, I think there's a lot of stigma behind history. As I say, there's a stigma behind what a historian does, what they say, what they look like. And everyone I talk to, it seems like I do a sport science, and that's understandable, I'm always [inaudible 00:08:21] about basketball. And whenever I talk about what I'm wanting to do, my dissertation on ball fascinates me even within history, the bigger topic of history. It's not really what is seen as typical whenever I talk to people and they go, "Oh." Again, I love history, I love learning about the ball, and Brilliant, Fantastic, that's such an important and vital topic to learn about.

Jamie Furness:
But of course, there's so much more to history. I think sports history really epitomizes that because no one really understands. The amount of times I've been asked, "Well, what is sports history? Is it not just, Oh, in 1979, X and Y won that?" But of course, it's not, it's a reflection of society, it's a reflection of culture, reflection of politics, it's so many different things and also so important. So for me, that's why I chose sports history because it kind of epitomizes everything I love about my craft and my two passions.

Skylar Smith:
Yeah, it's interesting, the way we see political, and economic and all of these different events happening through sports, say, all of the teams boycotting a game because of the racial injustice in the US, that has been happening for the history of sports. And so, to really dig into how even just the game of basketball has been shaped by politics for 100 years, it's really crazy to get into. I'm honestly so jealous that you're just spending so much time studying, it's just hard to get all that.

Jamie Furness:
As I say, I'm grateful and blessed to the opportunities that I have, but you're entirely right. I've listened to lot of Bill Simmons and he spoke about his time with Bill Russell. And of course, Bill Russell, despite being the face of Boston Basketball for a long time, he suffered such racial injustices whilst living in Boston. And as you say, it's not just the big events like that. If you were to go and watch England play football, before the game, 95% of the crowd stand up and they sing a song about the queen and about God. Now, of course, that's a British tradition and that's fantastic. But of course, that tells you a lot about the state that Britain is, how we view religion, how we view the monarchy, and that's before the games even begun. There's so much implicit information in the way that we operate within sports.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, it's a fascinating topic. And what made you actually choose British Basketball as your focus?

Jamie Furness:
Well, I mean, again, it's my passion. But at first it was a bit of a dream because, of course, I thought, "There's no academia on this, I can't name any books off the top of my head, I can't name any articles really." It's the extreme and-

Brian Bosche:
It's been hard for us to research it too, it's a hard topic.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, exactly.

Brian Bosche:
It's almost like Sam Neter from Hoopsfix is where I learn everything from his interviews with people in the British Basketball community.

Jamie Furness:
There's some fantastic books I can recommend you on the topic. I went to my lectures and my tutors and I said, "Look, this is what I want to do, what do you think?" And first of all, they said, "Well, fantastic, that's so niche or niche enough for you, that's perfect, that's what we're looking for, lovely." And I feel like there's a podcast in that just describing niche or niche, but that's how I went to message, "What can I do?" And they said, "Okay, well, let's to not focus on direct academia, let's have a look at stuff that influences the growth of British Basketball. So let's looks at in the city culture, let's look at what people do in the cities, the way that sport develops community."

Jamie Furness:
So Darcy Frey, The Last Shot which follows Lincoln High School and Stephon Marbury as they were coming up. And it's the very fly on the wall book, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the crux of it is that many people in section eight in Coney Island see basketball as a form of social mobility. This is their way out of this situation, this is the way to get out the city to get a degree. Even if they sit on the bench for four years, they've got a degree at the end of it, and that's the way forward. Whereas in Britain, I've discovered that it's more of music typically or football.

Brian Bosche:
In your TikTok when you described this you mentioned Detroit, where scholars from the Flint area, Detroit area, Skylar, does this resonate with you?

Skylar Smith:
Yeah, absolutely, I think growing up, sports was the biggest ticket out of that area, I think especially for men of color and women of color. But yeah, it doesn't seem like that's even really a consideration when it comes to basketball in the UK.

Jamie Furness:
No, and I'm not sure yet, but that's a thing was sports in the UK or basketball in the UK more generally. I think it would be sport because the university path is, in my understanding, a bit more common here than in the United States. I think a lot more young people decide to go to university or field to play shit, and I think that's a big part of it. But with regards to why British Basketball for the dissertation, I started looking at this wider academia, I started noting how sport helps develop community. In the Netherlands, they don't really play basketball, they play korfball, which is a very specific... Yeah, I don't want to do it-

Brian Bosche:
What is it?

Jamie Furness:
Korfball, K-O-R-F-B-A-L-L, I don't want to de-service this sport by describing it wrong, but I think it's like basketball on grass before baskets and specific rules, and then you have-

Brian Bosche:
I need to play this, it sounds like the end of the sports practice, Skylar, or sports training, but they're on the grass playing basketball.

Jamie Furness:
I've seen that, I've seen those ones. And in Ireland, I played Gaelic football, and these were all really specific things. So I could start thinking about, "Okay, well, maybe the reason that it hasn't grown in England is because it's seen as American, maybe it's just an entirely American thing. And yeah, so I started looking at some of the wider academia, and again, I've been blessed to be surrounded with people that know a lot about the game, that are involved with the game at different levels, sharing info for the game at certain levels. I know players, I know coaches and everyone has a different perspective on it, and it's been able to create a really rich bank of information for me to build up with.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, and before we launch into TikTok stuff, Skylar, because Skylar has some great TikTok questions for you, on that point, like you're saying, the lack of role models, there's Luol Deng, who's an all-star in the NBA from the UK, we have OG Anunoby, and even though he was only in London for a year, he still represents the UK. Well, Kyle Kuzma is from Skyler's neighborhood. There's a director who said, "Oh, Kyle Kuzma is in the league, he's a champion."

Skylar Smith:
And that's like one of six in the league right now that's from my area.

Brian Bosche:
So it's just, "Oh, that is a path that I can take because a lot of people in this area do it." Where in the UK they're still, just like Yao Ming coming over from China, just like with Serbia, with Jokić, there's these role models in these other countries that UK doesn't quite have yet. Are there any players that kind of catch your eye where you're like, "Okay, I think they can make the league, the cam Hildreth type, anyone that you're really excited about?

Jamie Furness:
Cam, at the moment, I think he's the name on everyone's lips. I think Kavell Bigby-Williams keeps moving in the right circles. Of course, he was with the Pelicans last year, he was on G League circuits. I think they're the big two, of course, because I was there. The Ipswich Academy is always providing great talent. You have Esther Little coming up through Ipswich and I'm mean, she's going to Gonzaga next year, I think she has a real chance of making the league. And yeah, I think that there's a lot of players, look, they just need the right sort of opportunity to fall at their feet, don't they? They need the right game to be on TV, for all [inaudible 00:16:43], I believe, I could be wrong. Matt Marsh, seven-foot tall, they all just need an opportunity.

Skylar Smith:
Yeah, and what made you start kind of using your TikTok as a way to talk about British Basketball? Were you on TikTok before this? Did you start the TikTok just for this reason? What made you choose a TikTok as your main platform? Run us through how this kind of got started?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, well, again, it's a bit of a mistake, it was an accident. I start using TikTok last October when everyone just got into it, made video here and there. Then I thought, "Well, I know basketball, I know to play basketball." I made a couple of more comedy-based basketball ones. Then I made problems UK basketball players face, and-

Brian Bosche:
Yes, that's the viral one, that's the one everyone saw.

Jamie Furness:
That was the one that was the first one, yeah. And then the ball started going downhill, people started asking me questions. I thought, "Well, I know the answer to that question." I like helping, it's a form of coaching. And people kept asking me questions, and it kept getting more and more popular, and I started getting more questions, and then, now, it's the 5th of January, and here we are talking about it. That's how it happened, really.

Skylar Smith:
On your niche.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, you found your niche, there we go. It was really funny, Skylar. The first ones I listened to, I think it was peak pandemic lockdown where you're walking down the road, you're like, "Problems UK ballers face," and you're like, "Don't worry, I'm on my one designated one walk today." [crosstalk 00:18:19].

Brian Bosche:
And so, when you're kind of producing these TikToks, I think the reply feature and TikTok is really powerful because you're right, you post the problems UK hoopers face. And then the comments section fills with people who maybe haven't been able to connect with that basketball community in the UK and see that as an opportunity to ask questions, to empathize, and you basically, in TikTok, if you haven't used it yet, you can grab that comment and then you can have It as kind of a reply or you can do a video, and you've engaged and that's basically your TikTok, it's like a big portion of your TikTok is just responding and answering questions, just like you're saying, which I love that part of engaging the community on it.

Jamie Furness:
Now, I do have to confession on that one is because recently, there's very specific questions that I want to answer, so I ask some of my friends to comment specific things.

Brian Bosche:
Yes, no shame in that, ask Skylar, I do that all the time.

Jamie Furness:
I know, of course.

Skylar Smith:
He makes me [inaudible 00:19:13] on segue.

Jamie Furness:
Oh yeah, 100%, I think they're important questions that need to be answered and there are the questions that I can answer, I don't feel comfortable. I get a lot of comments saying, "I'm 14, this height, this weight, played at this level, how will I make the league?" Well, I'm a level one coach, but I'm not an experienced basketball coach, I don't feel comfortable saying, "Well, I've never seen you play, but you need to work on your handle." Stuff like that, but I know what I can answer and I like doing it, so.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, we get those questions sometimes. It's like, first of all, you're not making the league, no one makes the league. It's like five players every year, they get to play and it's one of the most exclusive communities in the world. So it's almost building a basketball culture, what are your actual goals to accomplish? Whether that's through college, or getting a degree, or playing in a league like the BBL, or being a professional athlete is an extremely valuable thing to do professionally. But before we kind of dive into just a ton of TikTok questions, one of my favorite parts of your TikTok is that you actually do talk about the kind of different periods of British Basketball. And we hear a lot about the '90s and the early 2000s is the Heyday. What do you think are kind of the different areas that you found in your studies of British Basketball? And then my up question to prep is what era do you think we're in now?

Jamie Furness:
So I think the '80s is where you have to start to because the '80s, you have a lot of big players coming over. And in the '80s, a lot of the American players were players playing out of American effort spaces. So for instance, there's one in Middleton who were naming Cambridge all over the country. So the '80s, you kind of have lots of great players and there's a great Facebook group called British Basketball History or something like that, and then everyone always talks about how great the '80s and '90s were. And there's a great book about Brunel Basketball, obviously, a university in London, about how great they were in the '80s. Kind of have the '80s as their own isolated thing, it's kind of like how you identify grassroots basketball. A lot of the anecdotes from the book are, "Well, we had seven players turn up, the bus was late, two of the players were hungover, we turned up and there was no care."

Brian Bosche:
The owner plays and is the coach, Bob Hope talks a lot about that, the old Commercial Director of the BBL.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, well, the refs completely did something or there'll be exploiting rules like well, the refs made an awful decision, but if you can't find the commissioner then you can't contest it, so they took the commissioner of a way in and stuff like that. And then you have the '90s, and then you kind of have like Nigel Lloyd coming through, who's now commentating with Darren [inaudible 00:21:56] down in London and he's the coach London, of course.

Jamie Furness:
And you have the '90s where they started putting it on [inaudible 00:22:04] too, and the production of it was really good, a lot of them are on YouTube now, that's really fun watching some of the finals there. And the '90s cast service, they were their own sort of a kind of 2010s, the NBA, in the sense that everything is British Basketball, it's amazing, it's high of to I know this and it's... and the game changed, it got more athletic, you've seen great players come through. Then the 2000s, kind of like in the NBA, you see a death from talent.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, it's interesting, it happened in both weeks.

Jamie Furness:
It is, and there's 101 reasons for that and I'm not knowledgeable enough to explain them though. It could be something to do with finance and it could just be something to do with the way that the league was financed. But of course, you have teams moving around it. If you go into London Lions Wikipedia page or London Towers, you see that they've had 10 different names, 10 different locations [crosstalk 00:22:57]. Yeah, it's really dance of Vince Macaulay that the teams still thriving as they are today and now he bought them, moved them to Milton Keynes, coached them. Where are we now? I think this is a really good position for British Basketball. Now, getting the CV deal back, you have some good players, of course, you have Ovie Soko [inaudible 00:23:22] going on Love Island. It's much you want to joke enough about it, it did a lot for the game.

Brian Bosche:
That was a big Love Island podcast.

Skylar Smith:
No joking here, we are not making jokes about all these expense here.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, exactly, and now he's playing a for Le Mans, I believe. And yeah, so I think the league's in a good place. You have Justin Robinson, who is the "face of the league local." And this is something I was going to mention a bit later, but there's something of the Steph Curry about Justin Robinson in the sense that if you grew up as gen Z watching the NBA in the 2010s, you're in such an amazing position because you're watching more of the arguably two or three greatest players ever in LeBron, six foot nine, can dunk from anywhere on the court, and you're watching Steph Curry, about my height and shoots frees in the exceptional clip.

Jamie Furness:
Now, what's so significant about that? Not everyone can dunk, I'm grateful enough I can barely dunk, but everyone can hit a free. Give me 1000 tries, everyone in the world will hit a free, and that makes the game so relatable and so accessible. Not everyone could go, "Oh, I want to be like LeBron, I'm just going to take off from four steps away from the basket and put my arm in the rim, I'm not Vince Carter." But Justin Robinson is very much of the molder of Steph Curry, short play makers. I've met Justin Robinson, he's a lovely fellow, but he's shorter than me, I'm six-two on a good day, and he shoots frees and that's very relatable. From Brixton, he speaks about his relationship with Jimmy Rodgers a lot. And Jimmy Rodgers is so significant, if you've read anything about the history of the game, you know the name Jimmy Rodgers and how important he is. And he's so relatable.

Jamie Furness:
And of course, where people now say Curry, I imagine people said Kobe when you two were in school. Of course, working in a school, I saw a lot of everyone emulating Steph Curry now, but no one's emulating LeBron, but not because they hate them, but [crosstalk 00:25:19]-

Brian Bosche:
They're not freaks of nature.

Jamie Furness:
Exactly, yeah.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Jamie Furness:
I think that's the era we're in, we're kind of in the 2014 NBA kind of era where there's a lot of talent in the league now, there's no denying that, a lot of good inputs. And we do have some really good role models and player models to look.

Skylar Smith:
Yeah, how has it been building a community of hoopers on TikTok? Did you find that this was something that people were thirsting for when you first started?

Jamie Furness:
Well, it's the first time I've had the word community used. But of course, it's fascinating because I don't think there was much of an appetite for it until you realize in yourself. As we're saying, a lot of questions for us, and that's what I've kind of fedge from. But of course, to be included in the community, I think the British Basketball community is such a good one because, of course, without people like yourself, without Will at BBL fix, rebound on Twitter, Darren [inaudible 00:26:28], Marcel of BBL LAB, and there's others I'm forgetting them, but the community wouldn't be where it is now. And we will serve very individual purposes. Of course, you kind of have the mass media outlet, BBL fix is, I don't know, your how's the highlights of British Basketball.

Brian Bosche:
Highlights, coverage.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, rebound is your numbers guide. Darren Pool, what he doesn't know about basketball isn't worth knowing, and he's a lovely guy too, I operate in that kind of groups.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, Darren's great.

Jamie Furness:
Oh, I love him, yeah. Marcel, BBL LAB, he's doing some of the things to BBL fix and rebound and-

Brian Bosche:
He's an our [inaudible 00:27:05] though, he is slander on Twitter against the Lions and the Giants are going to win, you'll love to see it.

Jamie Furness:
He goes on about the Giants so much-

Brian Bosche:
I know, we just talked about that the other day.

Jamie Furness:
But of course, that's the kind of passion that we love. And so, building in the community, of course, it's kind of like adding an extra arm to the body of the British Basketball community. Everyone within British Basketball, whether they know it or not, is part of this community, will play in, you will literally play up, consume it, ask questions about it. So to bring it across the TikTok, and of course, the videos are shared onto Twitter and Instagram and making it accessible for you, Cam Hildreth shared one where I made a joke about him, it's being easy in the sense of... Again, kind of somewhat selfishly, I have no competition, not really. But the next biggest British Basketball page is Bristol Flyers with 2000 followers or something like that.

Brian Bosche:
Duke of Hoops.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, of course, you're up there.

Brian Bosche:
The Duchess of Hoops, making a comeback?

Skylar Smith:
I'm not in this conversation yet.

Brian Bosche:
The competition is here, Jamie, we're scouting it out, that's what this podcast is about.

Jamie Furness:
It is, 100%, you're trying to get inside track.

Brian Bosche:
Exactly.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, but for me, it's been easy because I've been able to talk about what I love and talk freely. And people have been fortunate enough to enjoy listening to my monotone voice and enjoy the content that I'm putting out. So for me, it's been easy, I mean, it's still amazing when I'm at a court and a 14-year-old would come up to me and go, "You're the [inaudible 00:28:43]."

Brian Bosche:
You're actually getting called out on courts?

Jamie Furness:
Yes, its happened six, seven times now.

Brian Bosche:
That's amazing.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, of course, it puts a lot of pressure on, it's like when Kevin Durant went to Rucker Park, of course, or something like that.

Brian Bosche:
Exactly like that.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, exactly, similar levels of production from he and I, so. But it's been amazing to be able to associate myself with British Basketball of England, the BBL and all of these institutions, because at the end of the day, I'm just a fan sitting in front of a camera talking about something I'm passionate about and people want to see that.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, and we hear a lot, actually the last dance coming out early in the pandemic kind of brought back that nostalgia for basketball in the UK and kind of added more, and especially with 2K coming out and a lot of the energy around e-sports has made gen Z much more interested in basketball in the UK. And TikTok is not just for gen Z, there's all different age groups as far as I know. It's typically perceived as just for kids, but it's all over the place now. Have you seen a shift in how the younger generations have perceived basketball in the UK?

Jamie Furness:
It's a difficult one to answer because, as we were saying, it's a great period to be getting into basketball for Britain and the NBA. And I know a lot of people that play 2K but aren't particularly into basketball. And we spoke about how accessible the game is for people, how hard it is to play but how fun it is to emulate. I think the last dance, of course, it makes you realize the depth of the game. Not quite the same as sports history, it isn't a case of Michael Jordan stepped on a court, walks off it an hour and a half later with FAPE points and a championship. That's the culture of the team that was trying to stop Rodman from Rodmaning, that was trying to keep Scotty Pippen happy, that was acumen Jerry Crafts. There was all of this. So, I think-

Brian Bosche:
Rodman, BBL player?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, Brighton.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, for a couple of games, right?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, do you know who his coach was when he was playing for Brighton? It was Nick Nurse.

Brian Bosche:
Nick Nurse coached Dennis Rodman in the BBL?

Jamie Furness:
I'm not 100% sure, but you can tell I'm wrong.

Brian Bosche:
Okay, we need to check that, there needs to be a documentary.

Jamie Furness:
Nick Nurse; owns Brighton, played for Birmingham, coached Leicester, there's pictures of him up in Leicester's corridors, he coached in England a long time.

Brian Bosche:
I heard that Rodman showed up hung over, got like 27 rebounds and then he played one more game and it was done.

Skylar Smith:
He was like, " I'm out."

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I have a Brighton jersey from that season. Yeah, he must've got paid a lot of money. But of course, before the last dance, Paddy Power, the betting company, did the documentary of Dennis Rodman where he went to North Korea. That was interesting, to say the least, as you can imagine. But yeah, so it's a tricky one looking at how gen Z perceives basketball, especially in the UK, because I think a lot of that was covered when we were saying, "They see it as a game that you play in PE. You see it as, oh, it's raining, we can't really play football, guess we'll play basketball." And quite truthfully and sadly, it would always be an American sport and would always be in the shadow of football. And it's sadly for me because I enjoy it, of course, but football is such an amazing sport and I love the game. But it would always be in that shadow and always be second to it. And I think that's the way it's perceived as a backup.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, if you're second to the Premier League, I think that's okay, that's a good spot to be in.

Skylar Smith:
I don't think anyone's thinking, "Let's take over football, let's take over the Premier League." You mentioned that-

Jamie Furness:
But of course, in your head, that has to be, doesn't it? For it to grow, you have to put it first and that's your big challenge.

Brian Bosche:
Well, even in the States, the NFL is a lot bigger than the NBA.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, they got Christmas day ratings, NBA ratings are down-

Brian Bosche:
I mean, ratings are down all over the board, but it's still number two to the NFL. NFL is the core following just like it is in the Premier League. But basketball is more of that younger audience, which it seems like basketball could be in the UK as well, maybe it's just that younger up and coming audience.

Jamie Furness:
That's entirely it, that's the thing, it's young intervention. If you want to build a culture of basketball in the UK, you have to start playing before you're 11. You look at every football player, they say, "Oh, I've been playing since I was four. Since I could walk, I was kicking a ball back up with all of my feet." Same with basketball, how can we have talented basketball players that are going up against[inaudible 00:33:20]? Take JJ Redick, I love the old man on the podcast. He has shot millions of shots in his lifetime and hundreds of thousands of those would have been on his driveway at home before the age of 10. How can we compete with that? And so, that's the key, that's how we need to change the culture, I guess.

Skylar Smith:
Yeah, you mentioned that British Basketball TikTok is not super populated right now. How can British Basketball teams and players, how can they take better advantage of TikTok, do you think?

Jamie Furness:
I think it's the same way that you would utilize Instagram. Everyone wants to see highlights; you pick your highlights on there. One-minute interviews, now that'd be such a fascinating way to get into it. Five quick hit questions, all the smoke, for instance. Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, they do their quick hitters, which is like a five dinner guests, dead or alive, and stuff like that, just stuff that is easily accessible, easy to consume. Yeah, I think that sort of stuff because what can you do as a team other than put your highlights out there, loud thoughts? I mean, the more content you have out there, the more views you're going to get, the more clicks you're going to get. Even if you think, "Okay, I've put 10 minutes into this video and it's not a good one," people go see it. So I think that's the way forward for me.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, The Flyers were pretty early on, they had one of the bigger ones when they first started.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, they were.

Brian Bosche:
I've seen a lot more BBL teams join now, like the Lions just started theirs and they have some pretty good quality content. So it's good to see BBL teams starting to use it more. I'm excited to see that growth because I think it's a powerful way to reach that audience.

Jamie Furness:
I will take secondhand blame credit for the Lions because they put one of my TikToks in their story about Justin Robinson. Then they've got a [crosstalk 00:35:17], and I'm not saying it's my-

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, the stuff [inaudible 00:35:19]?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, that was the one. I want to do more of those, but of course, it's a tricky one.

Brian Bosche:
Offending people?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, without saying, "Yeah, Kevin Richard has really got a bit of [inaudible 00:35:29] about him," and stuff like that, but yeah.

Skylar Smith:
Switching gears a little bit, what do you think are the best jerseys in the BBL right now?

Jamie Furness:
Right now?

Skylar Smith:
I took a lot of heat the other day. We went on the BBL podcast, and I got asked this question, and I just was being a Scorcher supporter and I just said, "I'm going to say it's my team, I'm going to say it's the Scorchers." And I took a lot of heat for that. So what do you think are the best jerseys in the BBL right now?

Jamie Furness:
I've always been a fan of Worcester. Worcester's last season. Now, there's a guy from [inaudible 00:36:06] called Daniel Johnson-Thompson playing for Worcester, and he's a lovely guy.

Skylar Smith:
We love him.

Brian Bosche:
We love him.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, he's a really lovely guy. I was in the gym with him once and I've never felt more insignificant doing box jumps next to a six foot six Daniel Johnson-Thompson. And I loved Worcester from last year. Leicester classic-

Brian Bosche:
Leicester's is a whole good, the way that it sits on the body, the color scheme, it just pops on the court, it's so nice.

Jamie Furness:
What do you think of London's? Because I kind of enjoy it, it's very plain, but I do enjoy it.

Brian Bosche:
Skylar, you're the [inaudible 00:36:43]-

Skylar Smith:
Yeah, I think they're plain, but I think they're crispy, I like them a lot. I think they just look clean and nice.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, I think Newcastle were doing the right thing too by kind of mirroring Newcastle United Football Club and the black and white stripes there, because back in the '80s, Manchester United used to have a basketball team.

Brian Bosche:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), that was part of that club, right?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, franchise, it is part of Man United, but yeah, Newcastle. But if I had to pick one that I loved and one that I hated, disliked, I would go, "I love Worcester." I'm not a fan of Plymouth, I think, because they're going under a bit of a rebrand, if I'm aware. I'm not-

Brian Bosche:
Not a foxy fan?

Jamie Furness:
It's the green, I just don't think it suits. I think if you're going to go for a color like the green where it's very distinctive, very bold, you have to do a lot less a bit. You have to have thick white popping or something and just something that, "This is here, it's distinct., we don't have a lot going on." We've Leicester, you can say, "Okay, well, the dark red's a light red gradient." That's the thing to look at, whereas with the green, you have to go, "Look, it's a garish green, this is what you're looking at, this is the focus point."

Brian Bosche:
Paul Nicholson, I am so sorry. He was one of our guests, friend of the pod, he works for the Plymouth Raiders, coaching at the Academy and commenter. And it seems like, Skylar, every podcast we don't mean to, but we insult the Raider somehow like the last episode too.

Skylar Smith:
It's completely unintentional, I will say.

Brian Bosche:
Paul, we love you, we're sorry, we support the Raiders but, I don't know.

Jamie Furness:
Look, here's what's sad about Plymouth, it's you have to give them a lot of credit because for someone like Plymouth to attract players, if you're an American, do you want to play in London or do you want to play in Plymouth? And of course, that's where I think-

Skylar Smith:
London.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, exactly, and I think that's where the university system really works. Having Plymouth match in university, working with the team, I think that really, really does work well, I think that system's great. And of course, you have to credit Plymouth, that they've had some exceptional players there over the time, Joshua Wilcher, Rashad Hassan, so yeah-

Brian Bosche:
Ashley Hamilton, Andrew Lawrence is coming back from injury hopefully soon but they are some ecstatic players.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, Elvisi Dusha is there now. I love Elvisi, he's a great player.

Brian Bosche:
Dusha is great.

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, he played for Essex last year.

Brian Bosche:
Oh really?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, well, when London City went under, Ashley Hamilton and Elvisi signed for Essex. They're not a team anymore, they went in with Oakland Wolves. But their coach, Tom Baker, coached me to be a coach, he did my coaching course. And that's the thing about British Basketball, it's everyone knows everyone.

Skylar Smith:
Everyone knows everyone, small community.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, exactly, that's our safe, nice things about the Plymouth Raider segment for Paul Nicholson, you're welcome. Sorry we roast you on every pod. We did not plant Jamie with that response, by the way, Paul.

Jamie Furness:
No, look, at the end of the day, I know a lot of students if I only take a small commission, like 15%-30%, just figure it out.

Brian Bosche:
Yeah, definitely, okay, let's end the pod with a very difficult question and a very broad question. But if you were in charge of British Basketball, you're the chancellor, the king, you are the one that is in total control or what does Bill Simmons say? The czar of sport, you're the czar of British basketball, what would be some of your top strategies to help grow the game in the UK?

Jamie Furness:
So, culture is key, I've alluded to it before in the pod, culture is key. We need to change the culture. And of course, in Britain, that's such an uphill task. And of course, I'm going to sound like I'm talking negatively about the sports we have in Britain, but I'm not. In Britain, if we look at the sports that are our biggest, I would say, football, rugby, and cricket. Now, if you look at those three sports, several played on grass and you don't really need a lot to play them, we said it with football. With rugby, you need to align your player in too and you don't need to use an off yellow ball, you could get away with it. Okay, cricket seems like the outlier. Well, in primary school, I was playing on a field with a bean a tennis ball and a bat, it weren't a lot.

Jamie Furness:
And basketball, as we said, requires this kind of specific apparatus. I think for it to grow, you need success because in Britain we're very patriotic with our sport. And before the 2012 Olympics, no one knew who Greg Rutherford was, let alone what he competed in, and of course, I imagine some people still don't know. But after 2012, a lot of people knew Greg Rutherford, the tall ginger long jumper. Now, of course, why? He won gold, he did something for the country.

Jamie Furness:
I think if we was to have Olympic success, that's on the biggest sporting scene in the world, and it's shown what basketball can do for the country and not what the country can do for basketball. And of course, that's where that return investment comes. Matt Harper, who's the head coach in my program, he said in a coaching seminar, "Basketball is a return investment, we coach to hope that people that we coach would then put that same effort in and coach people there. And I think that return investment is needed on the elite scale.

Jamie Furness:
I think Luol Deng has done it perfectly with Deng camp with the ambassador work that he does. If, say, Cam Hildreth becomes an all-star hypothetically, I think that would go a long way to changing the culture because we have someone representing Britain. Cam Hildreth is 6'4, 6'3, he's not particularly tall. Again, a very accessible sort of frame, he looks quite similar to myself. We're not special, we're not a seven foot one phenom, we're not Kevin Durant who's 7'5, plays like a guard, can shoot from anywhere on the floor. So I think, to try and keep it succinct, how do we kind of like grow basketball? Well, we need to change the culture. How do we change the culture? We need to show the people and show the governing bodies that basketball can do a lot for people.

Jamie Furness:
Now, of course, I imagine, you don't need me to tell you that if you were to go to anywhere in the Tower Hamlets or Brixton for Jimmy Rodgers, for example, basketball is vital to children, it's vital to the way that we eat, the way that we sleep, the way that we live our lives. And if we was able to grow that and show that there is so much to be gained from this sport with regards to youth centers, and keeping people off streets, and keeping people healthy because, of course, Britain is regarded as an obese nation, now, I think that would be a great way to grow the nation, is to really show that this culture is a special one for basketball, and we can do a lot for it, and it can do a lot for us.

Brian Bosche:
That's an incredible answer, thank you, that's such a broad question that's so hard to answer, and it's very well said.

Jamie Furness:
Of course, yeah, thank you very much.

Brian Bosche:
Well, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find you? Where should they follow you? Anything to plug?

Jamie Furness:
Yeah, my TikTok is just my name, Jamie Furness. My Instagram is Jme_Furness like the rapper Jme. But yeah, if you want to do something for me and you want to play, go on to Basketball England club finder. Because I get this a lot, "Where can I play?" The club finder, that's where it is. What I plug? Go by a basket ball, go play basketball, that stuff will employ you today, go make friends with it. So many people before us have, well, go finish or continue where the people have started.

Brian Bosche:
Thank you so much, Jamie, appreciate it.

Skylar Smith:
Very nice plug, thank you, Jamie.

Jamie Furness:
Thanks for having me, thank you, it's my pleasure.