NBL boss optimistic about Ottawa team
Support for basketball high in city, he says
Paul Riley has been National Basketball League of Canada commissioner for three weeks, not even enough time to get business cards made or to memorize his office phone number.
Even so, he speaks confidently about the league’s future and Ottawa’s place in it.
“You’re never sure when you start anything how it’s going to work out, but what I do know is that Ottawa supports basketball, at least they have at the university level, pretty passionately,” Riley said in an interview Tuesday, the first of two days of meetings with the SkyHawks expansion franchise that begins play this fall.
Ottawa is Riley’s fourth stop on a tour that began in London, Ont., Mississauga and Brampton and continues to Halifax, Moncton, Saint John and Summerside, P.E.I. A former team captain of the Dalhousie University Tigers and CBC Television journalist before becoming a lawyer, Riley said the SkyHawks would have to establish their brand in the community to succeed.
The same can be said for the league, which is entering its third season.
There are a lot of very good basketball players outside the 400 or so in the National Basketball Association, Riley said, and many would prefer to play close to home rather than overseas. Canadianborn and -trained players also deserve pro opportunities, and it’s better if those come in front of friends and family.
In short, he said, Canada has been overdue in developing a domestic league to match those in other countries. “They still love the NBA, but they have had room on the menu for their own professional basketball leagues.”
NBL Canada has expansion in mind eventually, and Riley says there are still more basketball-friendly markets in Ontario and Western Canada, but his short-term priority is stabilizing current franchises, making them viable and putting a consistently good basketball product on the floor.
Doing otherwise, according to him, would be irresponsible.
“I think the markets are there and the interest is there as well, but we are going to do things slowly and meticulously,” Riley said. “We are not going to throw teams into markets only to have them fail.”
The SkyHawks start training camp Monday in Orléans, and the 40-game regular season tips off Nov. 2 at Canadian Tire Centre. Riley hadn’t been to the Kanata arena as of Tuesday morning, but hoped to do so by Wednesday.
With more than 19,000 seats, it’s “large” for an NBL team, Riley said, but it’s his understanding that a switch to a smaller, more intimate setting — think the renovated Civic Centre at Lansdowne Park — is contemplated for 2014-15.
That, plus creating a widely known SkyHawks brand, will make things work, Riley said.
“This sport has never been more popular (in Canada) than it is now,” he said. “Virtually every household in this country, someone is playing the game of basketball.”