Hey,

Hope you all had a good Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year - I have spent the last 4 days being consumed by moving and am excited for fresh beginnings!

With a lack of publishing over the past week, today's 3-pointer is 3 things I'm looking forward to in 2022:

👥 Welcoming fans back to the Hoopsfix All-Star Classic

We just about pulled off the Classic in 2021 - without all lockdown restrictions having been lifted at the time, it was either do it with no fans, or don't do it all. We did the former and it was great, but I can't tell you how much I missed having fans there. Though things are getting a little shaky again on the COVID front, I'm hoping by the time we get to May/June we'll be clear, and we can welcome fans back to join us celebrating the country's top junior talent!

💰 Seeing how 777's investment in the BBL begins to be spent

It was arguably the biggest British basketball story of 2021, and in 2022 we should (I hope!) start to see the £7m investment the BBL has secured being spent. I'm intrigued to see just how much of a tangible improvement it can make in the league, and I really hope it does become the inflection point for the sport we all love so much to take a serious turn!

📈 Growing the Hoopsfix Foundation

We finally got our house in order a little over a month ago, appointing four new board members to the Foundation and re-writing our constitution so we can begin making funding applications. Our first funding bid for £50,000 has been submitted at the start of this month (should hear back if we're successful in January), and our next one for £100,000 is pending to be submitted in January - if either are successful it will change *a lot* in terms of our capacity to do stuff. I've just spent £125 on a 'bible' of 2000 funders which I will be trawling through, as I want to make 2022 the year the Foundation grows up a little and builds out a team to scale the impact we can have on British basketball. Outside of the Classic, other things 100% happening will be some bits at Clapham Common courts over the summer, plus the release of our first documentary toward the end of the year.

What about you? Anything that should be on our radar heading into the New Year? Hit reply and let me know!

Thank you for sticking with me through 2021, and I wish you and yours all the best for 2022. Happy New Year!

With gratitude,

Sam