Several of the athletes taking the court at Pasadena City College on April 12 can jump higher than anyone ever measured at the NBA Draft Combine. But none of them is tall enough to play in the NBA.
A Pasadena couple say that paradox is the founding premise of the United Basketball Federation, a new professional basketball league exclusively for players under 6-foot-2 — a height cutoff its founders call “the statistical line between overrepresented and underrepresented in pro basketball.”
The UBF’s inaugural event, the Creator Game, is scheduled for Sunday here in Pasadena.
Scott and Danni Hanson, the married couple who founded the league and live in Pasadena, say professional basketball has a problem no other major American sport shares.
The shortest player on an NBA court at any given time, they say, is typically 6-foot-3 — taller than 97 percent of American men. By their estimate, outlier height requirements effectively exclude 95 percent of the population from the professional game.
“We both felt it was weird that every other major sport has athletes of different sizes, but that pro basketball largely excludes 95 percent of the population by height,” the Hansons said in a written interview with Pasadena Now.
Their reference to height exclusion draws on a comparison with the general population. Separately, publicly available NBA roster data shows the average player height in recent seasons has fallen in the range of approximately 6-foot-5 to 6-foot-6.
The Hansons’ backgrounds are unusual for sports-league founders.
Her role, she said, “was to uncover and define problems that weren’t always obvious.”
Scott Hanson spent a decade — from March 2015 to February 2025, according to his professional history — as a self-employed Daily Fantasy Sports professional, specializing in the National Football League and the NBA. During NBA seasons, he analyzed statistics and built lineup combinations throughout each day, processing matchup nuances to find competitive edges.
With their new league, they have evolved into different roles.
“For the most part, I create the vision and Danni brings it to life,” Scott Hanson said.
Although neither comes from traditional sports management, what connects their careers, both said, is a shared instinct for identifying overlooked value — the same instinct that led them to look at a population of extraordinary athletes and see a market that professional basketball had missed.
The UBF is not simply a shorter players’ league with conventional rules. The Hansons have rewritten the sport’s scoring incentives to reward what undersized athletes do best. In UBF play, all dunks are worth three points — making explosive vertical athleticism, rather than height, the game’s premium currency.
“You’re going to see an entirely different brand of basketball, but these athletes still thrive above the rim,” the Hansons said. “In this league, all dunks are worth three points, making outlier athleticism the new currency over outlier height.”
The league is also introducing a signature game element called the 1v1 Throwdown: after certain fouls, an offensive player gets a one-on-one dunk attempt against a single defender. The Hansons compared it to a penalty kick in soccer — a high-stakes, isolated showdown designed to generate both spectacle and strategy.
The conceptual model, the Hansons said, is weight classes in combat sports. Boxing, Olympic and collegiate wrestling, and mixed martial arts all use physical-attribute tiers to ensure competitive equity. No major professional team sport currently uses comparable height- or size-based divisions. The UBF would be the first.
The Creator Game roster features former Division I college players, overseas professionals, professional dunkers, and basketball content creators with substantial online followings.
The event bills the participants as “content creators, elite hoopers, and pro dunkers” but does not name individual players.
The Hansons’ most striking claim concerns the athletes’ vertical leap measurements.
“In this first game alone, we have multiple players who have recorded official vertical leaps higher than the all-time NBA combine record,” they said. The all-time NBA Draft Combine maximum vertical leap record is 46 inches, set by Kenny Gregory in 2001 under standardized testing conditions. [Editor: The UBF players’ claimed measurements have not been independently verified by this publication.]
If accurate, the claim underscores the Hansons’ central argument: that the athletes excluded from the NBA by height are not lesser athletes. They are, by at least one measurable standard, among the most explosive jumpers ever tested.
According to California Secretary of State records, United Basketball Federation, Inc. was registered as a foreign stock corporation on February 10. The organization lists an estimated two to 10 employees. Scott Hanson officially founded the league in June and serves as its Chief Executive Officer.
The Hansons are forthright about the scale of the undertaking. Their target is a 16-team national league by 2027, with a seed funding round, a docuseries covering the league’s formation, and partnerships with high-profile former NBA players.
But they are equally candid that the timeline may shift.
“We realize that this is an extremely aggressive endeavor,” they said. “Should we need to pivot to something like an eight-team west coast launch in 2027, that’s also a possibility that we’ll need to consider.” Scott Hanson added: “This league is not a two-person job.”
The Hansons chose Pasadena deliberately. They live here. The league is headquartered here. Their next planned event after the Creator Game is a summer tournament in August, which they said they would also like to hold in Pasadena.
“This city offers a rare combination of history, athletic excellence, innovation, community, and creative expression,” the Hansons said. They cited the depth of basketball talent across Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, and Pasadena itself.
As they grow, they said, they plan to collaborate with sports professionals in the area. “We’ll need to add experienced, passionate members to our team in order to reach the next level,” Scott Hanson said.
Asked what message the UBF sends to young athletes in Pasadena and Altadena who dream of playing professionally but may be discouraged by their height, the Hansons returned to the emotional core of their project.
“There are so many great players who just didn’t hit the height lottery, and there should be a nationally featured, major platform for them to aspire to,” they said. “You can find them on the courts every day, doing everything they can to outwork the competition.”
“We see you,” the Hansons said, “and we’re here to solve this problem.”
IF YOU GO
What: UBF Creator Game — the inaugural pilot event of the United Basketball Federation
When: Sunday, April 12, 2026, 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Where: Hutto-Patterson Gymnasium, Pasadena City College, 1570 East Colorado Boulevard
Tickets: $7.18 to $12.51 via Eventbrite
Parking: Enter parking structures from East Del Mar Boulevard or South Bonnie Avenue. Parking payment via PayByPhone app.
Info: unitedbasketballfederation.com
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