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We are looking for education partners in North, West and South London to launch the next London Lions basketball academies in 2027/28 — following the model already established in East London with New City College.
Our East academy fields elite men's and women's teams alongside development squads and a full workforce programme. We want to build the same in three more corners of the city, with one anchor education partner in each — and we are starting those conversations now to be ready for a 2027/28 launch.
Register Your Interest
East London is established. These are the three regions where we want a partner institution to anchor the programme.
Enfield, Barnet, Harrow, Brent, Haringey, Camden, Islington and Westminster.
Hillingdon, Ealing, Hounslow, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Richmond, Kingston and Merton.
Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Sutton, Lewisham, Southwark, Lambeth and Wandsworth.
No institution ticks every box on day one. These are the things that decide whether a partnership works, roughly in the order they matter.
The single biggest predictor of success. We are looking for principals and senior leadership teams who actively want this — not a sports department enthusiastic about an idea the rest of the institution has not signed up to.
A willingness to make basketball a flagship sport: timetabled, resourced and protected. An academy cannot be squeezed into the gaps left by other programmes.
A high-quality wooden floor court, with two courts strongly preferred. If yours is not up to spec, that is a conversation rather than a no — we will happily talk to partners willing to invest in bringing a facility up to standard.
Access matters as much as the facility itself. Academy programmes need daily timetabled court time within the college day, plus evening availability for fixtures and community sessions.
A well-run institution with genuine academic breadth at 16–19. Our players are students first, and families need to see a real qualification and a real next step at the end of it.
Well connected by public transport and drawing students from across a wide area. The strongest academies recruit from a whole region, not a single postcode.
Established safeguarding, attendance and welfare structures, with a designated lead we can work alongside. We work with under-18s every day and will not compromise here.
We run boys' and girls' programmes side by side and expect both to be resourced equally — court time, staffing and profile. This is not a men's programme with a women's team attached.
Academies take three to five years to mature. We are looking for multi-year partnerships with room to grow, not a one-season trial.
None of these will decide whether we work together. All of them shape how quickly a programme can grow, so tell us where you stand.
Strength and conditioning space, changing rooms, secure kit storage and a room where squads can review video.
EABL and WEABL fixtures need spectator capacity, room for a scorers' table and a workable camera position for streaming.
A treatment room or physio space on site, and a sensible plan for injury cover on training and game days.
A PE or sport department willing to work alongside our coaches, and openness to hosting placements through our Workforce Development Programme.
Open days, feeder school relationships and marketing reach we can plug into. Filling a first cohort is the hardest part of year one.
Bursary support, kit help or travel assistance for students who would otherwise be priced out. Talent is spread evenly across London; opportunity is not.
A partnership is not a badge on a wall. This is what lands in your institution.
Highly qualified, experienced coaches employed and developed by us, working on your site to the same standard as every other London Lions academy. Not a volunteer with a whistle — full-time professionals who do this for a living.
A route that runs from your sports hall through our NBL sides and NextGen programme to the London Lions senior men's and women's teams. Very few academies can offer a genuine end point.
Places in the EABL and WEABL are applied for by each institution, so entry is never ours to hand over. What we can do is build a programme that meets the standard and back your application with our experience of doing it before.
Recruitment pull that a college programme cannot generate alone, plus matchday links to the senior teams at the Copper Box Arena.
Our Workforce Development Programme runs alongside the academy, building careers in coaching, officiating, media and event operations for students who will not turn professional.
Our community sessions across your region feed players upward, so the academy is not recruiting cold every September.
Complete the form below. It takes a few minutes and tells us enough to know whether there is something to talk about.
A call with our community team to understand your ambitions, your constraints and what you would want from us.
We come and look at the courts, the space around them and the timetable. Honest assessment of what would need to change.
A written proposal covering staffing, court time, costs, responsibilities on both sides and a realistic timeline.
A multi-year partnership agreement, signed off by your senior leadership team and ours.
Recruitment, open days and coach appointments, building towards a first cohort at the start of the academic year.
A few minutes now saves a long first call. Tell us about your facilities, your provision and what you are hoping to build, and we will come back to you.
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