Professional basketball appears headed to Saskatchewan.
As you might well have guessed as you read the opening line of this column, it’s not a National Basketball Association franchise. I doubt the NBA even has Saskatchewan in its long list of places where a franchise could one day go. While it seems probable the NBA could grow from its 30 team size successfully given the popularity of the sport, there is little to indicate expansion is on the agenda, although I did see a YouTube video not long ago listing 15 North American cities worthy of a team.
But back to the team headed to Saskatchewan, or more specifically a Saskatoon-based team which will carry the provincial name, much like the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League and the Saskatchewan Rush in the National Lacrosse League.
The new team is one of six listed on the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) website, a new league starting play in May 2019, joining franchises in Edmonton, Hamilton, Niagara, Guelph, and Fraser Valley.
The CEBL will be a summer basketball league, which is the first thing I wonder about in terms of fan interest.
In Saskatchewan in the summer time, its Roughriders and the lake which have long held people’s interest in the season that seems just too short.
Will fans be willing to head indoors to watch basketball?
Certainly, in large part because of the success on the court and in marketing by the Toronto Raptors, there is more interest in the sport today than when the Saskatchewan Storm played in the long defunct World Basketball League from 1990 to 1992, so that is a positive to draw on.
But, at least for me, I still see basketball as a winter sport, right there alongside hockey in terms of season. I tend to find sports which bleed their seasons beyond my sort of internal sports biorhythm off-putting. That is why interest in the Stanley Cup is near zero in late May and early June, a situation which could only be altered by a favourite team involved. Casual interest is simply not there in prime outdoor activity months.
Of course, proving that life is often a thing of contradictions, I can find summer hours to watch the Canadian Football League, so the new CEBL team may do well.
It is certainly being launched as an event-based league. The CEBL appears to be looking at a schedule of 20-games, which would line up as two home and two away games against each team in the loop. Selling 10 homes games as being special events to attend, dressed up with tailgate parties and pre-game entertainment, just might fly.
As a counterpoint, though, basketball has always been like hockey, about longer seasons and lots of games to keep fans focused, so how a short-season will work will be interesting to watch.
The games will be quick ones. The CEBL are planning to play using International Basketball Federation (FIBA) rules, which most notably play only 10-minute quarters. Using FIBA rules will likely aid European player recruitment and could help in developing Canadian players for international play, which are both good things in principle.
In many ways, the CEBL looks like it will mirror the existing National Basketball League of Canada (NBL Canada), which is a 10-team league based in the Maritimes and Ontario, which plays a season ending in May.
Logically, the two leagues should find common ground for a merger to create one Canada-wide league, but I doubt that happens any time soon.
I will watch the emergence of Saskatchewan’s CEBL team with interest. A naming contest is apparently forthcoming, and fans here have to be able to do better than the Hamilton Honey Badgers, which was already unveiled.
Hopefully, games will be online, as the chances of making 10 trips to Saskatoon for basketball games, even in summer, will not be on my list of things to do in 2019, although an excursion for a game or two may well be.
While about a zillion miles from the NBA in terms of basketball, the CEBL could carve a niche for Saskatchewan basketball fans craving some live games to cheer for.
