Every sport needs a bridge between education and the professional game. When government funding arrived through the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) in 2004 — and later its successor, the Diploma in Sporting Excellence (DiSE) in 2018 — it gave young athletes across multiple sports a dual path: to train like professionals while completing A-Levels or BTECs.
Around 1,500 athletes a year take part across more than twenty sports, with roughly £2,600 of funding per athlete. When AASE launched, most sports could plug this support into competitions that already existed. Basketball, rugby union and netball couldn’t. To make the qualification work, they each built a national academy league.
For years, those leagues looked similar — government-backed, college-based, and loosely connected to the professional game. But 2025 changed that.
Rugby Union — ACE League
Men’s rugby union’s AASE League, created alongside the qualification in 2004, has been re-engineered into the ACE League under the new Professional Game Partnership between the RFU and Premiership Rugby. From the 2025/26 season, every Premiership club must run two state-school academy programmes, turning what began as an education-based league into a fully club-aligned system.
Twenty schools represent the ten Premiership academies, while two — Bishop Burton College and Wath Academy — are linked to the RFU-run Yorkshire Rugby Academy, rather than a Premiership club.
| Academy Schools & Colleges | Linked Premiership Club |
|---|---|
| Ashton-on-Mersey College | Sale Sharks |
| Beechen Cliff School, Peter Symonds College | Bath Rugby |
| Bede Sixth Form College, Gosforth Academy | Newcastle Red Bulls |
| Cardinal Newman School, Gordon’s School, Bishop Wand School | Harlequins |
| City of Oxford College, Stourport High School | Gloucester Rugby |
| Coventry College, Loughborough College | Leicester Tigers |
| Exeter College, Truro College | Exeter Chiefs |
| Moulton College, Myerscough College | Northampton Saints |
| Oaklands College | Saracens |
| Richard Huish College, SGS College | Bristol Bears |
| Bishop Burton College, Wath Academy | None, both schools linked to the RFU-run Yorkshire Rugby Academy |
The ACE League is evolving into rugby union’s official national academy competition. The colleges provide education and facilities, but the pathway from school to the Premiership is now clearly defined.
Netball — NPL
Women’s netball is following a similar path. The Netball Performance League (NPL), launched in 2009 for under-19s and later expanded to include an under-17 division, became the sport’s first truly national academy competition.
That connection to the professional game deepened with NSL 2.0, England Netball’s Super League 2025 relaunch.
The relaunch created a clear vertical pathway, linking the NPL’s U17 and U19 tiers through the new NPL Next Gen U23 league to the professional Netball Super League itself. All but one academy carries the same name and badge as its Super League franchise.
| NPL Academies | Linked Super League Franchise |
|---|---|
| Birmingham Panthers | Birmingham Panthers |
| Cardiff Dragons | LexisNexis Dragons |
| Leeds Rhinos (North East), Leeds Rhinos (Yorkshire) | NIC Leeds Rhinos |
| London Mavericks | London Mavericks |
| London Pulse, Pulse Power | London Pulse |
| Loughborough Lightning | Loughborough Lightning |
| Manchester Thunder | Manchester Thunder |
| Nottingham Forest | Nottingham Forest |
| Team Bath | None |
Every franchise now runs an academy under its own name, completing a seamless system from youth to professional play. The one exception is Team Bath — a long-standing franchise that lost its Super League place under 2.0 but still operates its academy structure and continues to compete in the NPL U17, NPL U19 and NXT Gen U23 leagues.
Like rugby union’s ACE League, the NPL is now run directly through professional franchises rather than colleges.
Basketball — EABL and WEABL
Basketball built its own academy leagues — the Elite Academy Basketball League (EABL) in 2010 and the WEABL in 2015. Like rugby union and netball, they gave the sport a credible 16–18 competition for the first time, linking education and elite play.
Twelve men’s and twelve women’s academy teams compete each week, blending A-Levels or BTECs with daily training. The structure is strong, but the link to the professional game is inconsistent.
A handful of EABL academies are linked with clubs competing in the men’s or women’s Super League, or in the men’s British Championship Basketball (BCB), others are connected to semi-professional NBL sides, and several function as independent college programmes with no club affiliation at all.
| EABL Academy | Linked Men’s SLB/BCB Club |
|---|---|
| Charnwood College Riders | Leicester Riders |
| SGS College | Bristol Flyers |
| Birmingham Met City of Birmingham Rockets | Birmingham Rockets |
| Derby Trailblazers | Derby Trailblazers |
| HHS Reading Rockets | Reading Rockets |
| Barking Abbey | None |
| CoLA Southwark | None |
| Copleston High School | None |
| Itchen College | None |
| Manchester Magic | None |
| Myerscough College | None |
| Oaklands Wolves | None |
The pattern is the same in the WEABL. A few academies connect directly to clubs competing in the Women’s Super League but most have no professional counterpart.
| WEABL Academy | Linked Women’s SLB Club |
|---|---|
| Charnwood College Riders | Leicester Riders |
| Nottingham Academy Wildcats | Nottingham Wildcats |
| Oaklands College | Oaklands Wolves |
| Barking Abbey | None |
| Birmingham Met City of Birmingham Rockets | None |
| CoLA Southwark | None |
| Copleston High School | None |
| HHS Reading Rockets | None |
| Itchen College | None |
| Manchester Mystics | None |
| Shenley Brook End School | None |
| The Sheffield College | None |
The EABL and WEABL form one of the most structured parts of Britain’s basketball pathway, but they remain education-led and policy-backed rather than professionally linked. Without DiSE funding, the leagues would look very different.
Three Sports, Two Evolutions
Rugby union and netball have moved beyond government dependence. Their academy leagues are now owned and operated by the same clubs that run the professional game. Basketball has not yet made that transition.
Only five of the twelve EABL academies and three of the twelve WEABL academies are tied to professional clubs. Rugby union and netball, by contrast, now operate academy systems that are directly linked with their professional clubs.
That makes the basketball pathway more vulnerable to future policy changes — and limits how deeply the professional game can shape its own next generation. The EABL and WEABL remain the backbone of youth development, and there is clear opportunity for the professional tier to play a more active role in that system.
