‘10 for 10’ as basketball returns
10 thoughts from columnist Jason Winders on the tipoff (finally) of the NBLC 10th anniversary season …
London Lightning in action during the 2019-20 season. They’ll tip off for the first time in 23 months on Monday in Kitchener-Waterloo. Home opener is March 5. (Photo: Bill Boswell / London Lightning).
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On the eve of the NBL Canada and London Lightning tipping off their first games in 712 days – 712 days! – here are 10 things you need to know about the upcoming 10th anniversary season …
1 | Season is about survival. Holy crap – has it really been this long? Amazing job by league officials, owners and staff, coaches and players, event staff, and fans to keep this league operating after nearly two years of no games. Sadly, we are seeing there are not a lot of businesses – let alone sports leagues – that could survive that kind of blow. The courage and creativity that went into making this season happen is incredible. Take a moment and think about how far we have come.
2 | Enjoy the celebration. 10 years. The traditional decade-long wedding anniversary gift is tin or aluminum, which symbolizes the strength and resilience of a union. So, raise a tallboy or pop and join in a season-long celebration of the great teams and players who have called this league home. The league started the celebration early with some great social media content and looks to have a lot of surprises throughout the season.
3 | Embrace the weirdness. The reality is that this is a four-team league heading into a season with only a few weeks of training camp, playing a 26-game schedule with lots of new players and some cross-border clashes. It’ll be weird at times. But that will make things interesting.
4 | Seriously. Embrace the weirdness. Speaking of weirdness … everyone makes the playoffs. Everyone. That means every team has a shot, no matter what happens in the regular season. So don’t get too down on your team too quickly. That could create some wild scenarios at the end. Keep an eye on April 1 – that’s the deadline by which players need to be added to a team’s roster (as well as play in four regular season games) to qualify to play in the playoffs.
5 | Talent continues to rise. For those not already paying attention, former Lighting standout Xavier Moon’s 30-game run with the LA Clippers earlier this NBA season showed the calibre of talent that takes to the court in this league. Even with the weirdness of recruiting players off a normal cycle, with an uncertain schedule until the end, there is a lot of talent in this league in 2022. Embrace the players, enjoy their stories, and one day you’ll be able to talk about the time you saw some of these guys play in London.
6 | It’s showtime. The league has always struggled to gets its games consistently in front of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Broadcast TV is useless when it comes to supporting its teams, so leagues are often forced to take it into their own hands. Developed in partnership with PANDA Interactive, NBLC TV is a subscription-based platform that will allow fans to watch every game from the 2022 NBLC season — live and on-demand — within an interactive viewing experience that includes fan chat and in-stream ecommerce. Should be a nice option for home fans to follow the team on the road.
7 | Telling their own story. After years of depending on legacy media to cover (or, more precisely, not cover) the NBL Canada, look for the league to take control of its message this year. No longer dependent on dwindling (and remarkably uncreative) local news coverage beyond the final score, revamped league and team websites, along with an army of young storytellers, will bring the league to life in news and fresh ways. These players are interesting guys; you will love some of their stories.
Oh, Gameday London will have some pretty cool stuff, so be sure and check us out.
(Photo: Bruce Laing / London Lightning).
8 | Schedule shift will be a challenge. Listen, as I said, it is amazing this season is coming off at all. But the delay from a fall/winter tipoff to late-winter/early spring tipoff and season is going to be a challenge for capturing casual fan attention locally. The NBL Canada regular season runs Feb. 21-May 12, with the two-round playoff coming immediately afterward (dates pending) and running until approximately the end of the month. That puts it smack up against the OHL playoff race and playoffs. The OHL season ends April 3, with the playoffs running April 7-May 30. That will be a tough sell. If only there was a way to hold fan interest that the OHL and its free teen labour cannot compete with …
9 | Stars at night are big and bright. Canadian stars will be shining bright in April when the best of the NBL Canada head south of the border to play the best of The Basketball League (TBL) in the inaugural All-Star Weekend April 15-16 in Syracuse, New York. I know, for bigger leagues, All-Star Weekends are perfunctory money grabs. But this one could be huge for the league, introducing its top players to fans while also injecting a little fun with dunk and three-point contests. It’s an exciting moment of unity for the NBL Canada, a first us-vs.-them moment against another league.
10 | Future looks good – really. Seems weird to say coming out of a pandemic, but the league will finish this season and enter 2022-23 with eyes on growth. Beyond reviving the Atlantic Division next season, the league could look to leverage its new partnerships to grow.
The TBL partnership lets the NBL Canada dream about, yes, expansion. This year, four Ontario teams will compete against six U.S.-based teams in and around the Great Lakes. Not only does that inject new excitement and interest in the league, but it is a massive savings in travel.
Picture this: If the country can continue to keep the goatee-and-Oakleys crowd from blocking the border, the two leagues could copy their regional-based, interleague, cross-border approach across the countries. That formula allows the league to grow not only again in the east, but also in the Prairies and West Coast without the burden of travel costs. Think of NBL Canada teams playing cross-border rivals, then feeding into a larger nationwide playoff. It’s a real possibility.
Needless to say, the next 10 years will be wild.
There are some familiar faces, but there’s a sense of renewal in London as the Lightning embark on a new season. With a new coach and several new players, is a new era upon us? What to expect in 2024-25 …