It took a guy from France and another guy from Sweden to come up with a very L.A. idea: an old school bus that doubles as a traveling basketball court to provide hoops and happiness even when it’s stuck in traffic.
The guy from France — Nick Ansom, a former college basketball player and Veniceball founder — and the guy from Sweden — Eliot Robinson, a social-media wizard and digital storyteller — met at an event that Ansom hosted in Los Angeles during NBA All-Star weekend in February 2018.
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Ansom, 35, was drawn to Robinson’s social-media expertise. The 22-year-old’s @dunk Instagram account has 2.5 million followers, and he has managed and grown the social accounts of NBA star Dennis Rodman and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, among others.
Robinson, who was living in New York, reached out to Ansom during a trip to L.A. in September 2019 to reconnect. During their conversation, Ansom pitched Robinson an idea that he had been sitting on for around a decade — a portable hooping experience.
Ansom needed transportation for his ventures around the city — including his “Build Courts, Not Walls” campaign, which renovates basketball courts around the world — and he wanted to buy a vehicle, most likely a bus, and then attach a backboard to it.
The bus would draw crowds as hoopers played one-on-one and games of H-O-R-S-E. The vehicle could serve as a uniting force for strangers, bringing together men and women of all races, backgrounds and levels of basketball experience.
The third wheel of what would become the Hoop Bus was Nate Kelly, a lawyer who has been Ansom’s business partner for over a decade and helped him run Veniceball, the summer league on the Venice Beach courts. Ansom’s artistic approach is offset by Kelly’s pragmatism. Kelly, 33, is the business side of the operation.
“Nate was like, ‘Well, that’s all cool, but you’re gonna need some money to make all this happen at some point or another,’” Ansom said.
The group decided that a school bus was the right vehicle, as it was nostalgic and tapped into a certain Americana. They perused Craigslist and settled on a school bus from the Rim of the World Scenic Byway, a 110-mile scenic route in southern California’s Inland Empire, that cost $7,000. The words “Rim of the World” felt like a sign to them. So they journeyed to the desert, over 50 miles east of Los Angeles, to pick up the bus.
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In a three-day spurt, they found the bus, created a GoFundMe to raise money (it brought in more than $20,000) and hired their bus driver, Brandon Reese.
Ansom felt the initial vision for the bus, a hoop attached above the back window, wasn’t brash enough, though. He wanted a hoop in front, too. Robinson thought that wouldn’t look good aesthetically but was convinced by Ansom, and they invested in handymen to renovate the bus.
They installed backboards on the front and the back of the bus. “Hoop Bus” replaced “School Bus” on the front. “Emergency buckets” replaced “Emergency exit.” The three black lines along the side of the bus were painted blue in a nod to Venice Beach, the bus’s birthplace.
They covered the floor in hardwood, inspired by the Boston Celtics’ parquet floor, and realigned the seats to the perimeter of the vehicle, so passengers could easily move around. In the back of the bus, four of the seats face each other to form a mini podcasting booth and work station. The interior roof was plastered with photos and posters from basketball magazines.
The brakes and the stereo system each cost $2,000 to fix. Overall, the team invested between $20,000 to $25,000 on the bus before touring.
“The hard work that went into actually renovating and repainting the bus, it meant a lot to be able to fall through on something like that,” Robinson said. “Seeing the bus for the first time was a cool moment. To see the bus for the first time was like, ‘Wow, we actually did it. Now it’s just not a concept; it’s an actual hoop on a bus.’”
The Hoop Bus debuted on Sunday, Jan. 12, in Venice Beach.
While the group prepared for its first set of local tours around Los Angeles a couple of weeks later, the tragic news of Kobe Bryant’s death shook the basketball community and was felt around the world. The team wasn’t sure what to do next. It didn’t feel right to launch the bus and celebrate the venture while most of the city was mourning. There was talk of delaying the unveiling of the bus to a broader audience.
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But after discussing and evaluating its options, the group decided to pivot and dedicate the bus to Bryant.
They had a mural painted on top of the bus, with Bryant reimagined as the NBA’s logo, including purple and gold colors. The Hoop Bus became the Kobe Bus.
“We thought, ‘What better way to honor him?’” Ansom said.
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In mid-February, the new-look Hoop Bus set out on its first road trip — a cross-country trek to Chicago for All-Star weekend.
The bus had done small tours around L.A., venturing from Venice to Watts to Skid Row to Angels Gate Park, but this was the first long journey. Ansom wasn’t fully sold on the idea, having just returned from a vacation in Italy. Also, the projected cost of the tour was more than $12,000.
But the call for adventure was too much to pass up. A traveling party of 10 people — including Ansom, Robinson and Kelly — left for Chicago, embarking on a nearly three-week trip.
“When you meet the characters (on the bus) you say, ‘How in the world like these people can get together?’” Ansom said.
The group bonded as it encountered blizzards and a superwind. They slept on the bus or at the closest hotels they could find, ate Doritos and were mobbed by strangers at gas stations.
Everywhere the bus goes, it draws a crowd and elicits a visceral reaction.
“You see it and you’re just like, ‘What the f*ck is this?’” Robinson said.
But that’s part of the appeal. There’s a nomadic quality to the crew. One question leads to riffing on various topics. They love adventure — and constantly seek it out. They use “bucket” as a noun, adjective and verb. Aside from the grand idea and its impressive execution, their free-spiritedness and inclusivity and open-mindedness is what makes the experience special.
“The face of a kid just rolling up, he made the shot and then it’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s your ball now,’” Ansom said. “Just all of the unplanned moments. I think life is beautiful kind of unscripted.”
Hoop Bus draws a crowd wherever it goes. (Courtesy of Hoop Bus)
On the way back from All-Star weekend, the bus stopped at Navajo Nation, a Native American territory that spans 17,500 acres across three states. The group saw an old man walking along and stopped to ask him for directions to the nearest hoop.
“Do you know where they be balling at?” Ansom said.
“Yeah, 30 miles down the road,” the old man replied. “I’m going that way. Can you give me a lift?”
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“Sure,” Ansom said. “Saddle up.”
Some 30 miles later, they were surrounded by trailers with handmade hoops in nearly every yard. Ansom, who is a self-proclaimed “hoop hunter,” had to stop and take a few shots.
“You have to appreciate the beauty of this whole thing,” Ansom said. “That day will never be able to be duplicated.”
After returning to L.A., the bus was brought to Staples Center at night for weeks in February and March, including for Bryant’s memorial on Feb. 24 when thousands mourned and celebrated Bryant’s life.
The bus remained dedicated to Bryant for its first two-plus months, but because of the pandemic, the group decided to take a break from traveling. The Hoop Bus, to a large extent, revolves around human contact and connection.
“No one wants to take shots with a dirty ball on a bus,” Robinson said. “No one wants to ride the bus. We were kind of offline for a while. And then the whole George Floyd situation arose and we were like, ‘OK, well, how do we dedicate this bus to the Black Lives Matter movement?’ And it really took off.”
On May 25, the video of Floyd dying after Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, knelt on his neck, sent America — and the rest of the world — into shock, sadness and uproar.
When protests began in Los Angeles, the Hoop Bus crew felt it was time to reimagine the bus, take a stand and return to the streets to join the protests.
Dedicating the bus to Bryant was the first sign of the group’s ability to react and adapt in a critical moment, deploying the vehicle as a canvas for self-expression. But dedicating the bus to the Black Lives Matter movement was on a different — and a more important — scale.
“It’s like how do you use projects, causes or things that are important to you?” Robinson said. “And how do you use projects that you’ve started or that you’re involved in and dedicate them to like what right now in the world matters to you the most? How do you dedicate the projects that you’re working on towards that?”
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The group considered painting the entire school bus black but decided against it. They felt it would change the essence of the vehicle. Instead, they had artist Phree Hester paint a black fist with “Black Lives Matter” on the roof of the bus. They also emblazoned the names of recent victims of police killings on the windows. “I can’t breathe” was inscribed on the back windshield. And they painted both backboards black, writing “Black Lives Matter” on each.
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Let Your Voice Be Heard. Do Not Silence Yourself. 🖤
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The team understood that taking a political stand could be divisive. Ultimately, its goal is to unite communities, not divide them. But aligning with the Black Lives Matter movement was too important and necessary.
“To stand up for what’s right is always right,” Robinson said. “I would say, for me, personally, I’d rather stand up for what’s right and lose those followers and the people that don’t want to get involved in this as a political message. I think that makes the most sense.
“For me, it was just important. This is one of the projects that is the most important for me. And if you don’t agree with it, I honestly don’t want you to support us. If you don’t agree with us on our stance on this matter, it means that our core principles and morals are just different. We can still be friends. There’s no ego involved. But we’re standing up against police brutality. We’re standing up against racism and discrimination.
“And if you, for any reason, are for that, I just don’t want you involved in our project.”
In late June, the bus was parked in a red zone while protesting around downtown L.A. The Los Angeles Police Department pulled up and began writing a ticket for the bus when Ansom offered a bold proposal: a shootout for the fate of the ticket.
“You know what, let’s play a game of P-I-G,” Ansom told the officers, handing them a basketball. “And if I win, you guys cancel the ticket.”
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Ansom maintained that the bus had done more good than harm while protesting in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Even if the bus occasionally parked in the red.
He recalled an LAPD officer telling him: “OK, I’ll spare the next ticket that you get if you beat my lead shooting officer right here.”
Ansom, realizing he couldn’t talk his way out of this ticket, agreed to the terms — and easily won the shooting competition.
This wasn’t the Hoop Bus’ first encounter with the police during quarantine, though.
A couple of weeks earlier, on June 6, following roughly four hours of protesting downtown, the bus was impounded by LAPD near Staples Center. At first, LAPD asked the bus to pull over so it could be escorted safely through a crowd of hundreds of protestors. Shortly after, the bus was surrounded by dozens of police officers standing in formation, according to multiple eyewitnesses. From Ansom’s perspective, the Hoop Bus had done nothing to warrant this type of reaction.
During the day, several police officers — Ansom estimated a double-digit figure — stopped by the bus and shot around. Not once did an officer give a warning that they could be in any trouble or their actions deemed not safe. The bus didn’t have any weapons, drugs or alcohol aboard. They weren’t inciting violence or disobeying the police. They were peacefully protesting and providing entertainment for strangers with shooting games, dunk contests and music.
“It’s empowering to the people that we bring on board and the people around,” Ansom said. “We got this giant air horn and wherever we get to a police barrage, it becomes a magnet and the police have to disperse and then the people march. It really feels like a victory. It’s powerful. It’s amazing to be able to share these moments with people through the day.”
As the bus was loaded onto the tow truck, witnesses took photos and videos and uploaded them to Instagram and Twitter. Followers of the bus, from social media and the protests, used the hashtag “#FreeTheHoopBus.”
On June 6th, LA's iconic Hoop Bus was impounded while supporting a BLM protest.
The guys behind the bus are now turning to their community for support to help #FREETHEHOOPBUS: https://t.co/MAxRQ6lrlX pic.twitter.com/6yG3nePrC8
— GoFundMe (@gofundme) June 15, 2020
Ansom and Robinson received direct messages, texts and phone calls from supporters asking how they could help. A GoFundMe was started to get the Hoop Bus out of the pound, and within 24 hours, over $5,000 was raised for legal fees.
“It really showed how much the community cared,” Robinson said.
At some point in the future, Ansom and Robinson said, there will be more Hoop Buses.
The non-profit organization is planning on launching a second bus in London — possibly a double-decker bus — sometime this year with one of their investors, Jack Gibbs, a wheelchair basketball player from England.
Eventually, they would like to debut a third bus in the Philippines, perhaps around Christmas depending on how the pandemic plays out. That would give the internationally flavored group a Hoop Bus on three different continents.
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The short-term vision is to continue to protest, support and bring awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement. On Aug. 7, the bus is scheduled to leave Venice Beach, Calif., for Venice, Fla., embarking on a tour that will take them through the South. The tentative stops: Palm Springs, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Batesville, Birmingham, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Richmond, Washington D.C. (for the March on Washington) and Venice, Fla. (for around two weeks to build a court).
On the way back, the group will visit some of the nation’s biggest cities, including Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Denver and Las Vegas before getting back to Los Angeles at the end of September.
Ansom and Kelly will meet with community leaders, help build and renovate courts and showcase new and undiscovered basketball talent.
“The goal is always to leave the city better than when we came in,” Ansom said.
The group has also had a videographer filming every trip and plans to release a digital series with behind-the-scenes content from their travels.
Longer term, the vision is to have a Hoop Bus in every major U.S. city, and possibly, every big-city school district.
“There’s not a lack of school buses across the world,” Ansom said. “It’s either a partnership with school districts across America and creating and making sure every school district has at least one Hoop Bus in their fleets. A lot of times schools sometimes don’t have hoops. Again, this idea that the bus can park and now the kids can play.”
Until then, the motley crew will continue traveling, cruising the streets of Los Angeles each weekend, reacting to social justice issues and uniting strangers through the universal language of basketball.
“I’ve yet to have a day on the Hoop Bus that’s boring or that’s not the best day ever,” Ansom said. “It’s kind of designed to be like the last day on Earth. It’s like what would it be like? Or if it was your birthday party? You’d go to Chuck E. Cheese and, you know, get all your friends and book a room somewhere. And it just seems like that every time you board. It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, birthday party!’
“Just without the candles. The candles just turn into buckets.”
Hoop Bus will roll along looking to bring people together. (Courtesy of Hoop Bus)
(Top photo courtesy of Hoop Bus)
