Hamilton’s Honey Badgers tip off in ’19
They’ll go traditional with the black and gold colours, and more new school with their team nickname.
On Tuesday morning, the Hamilton Honey Badgers unveiled their name, logo and team colour scheme before a roomful of local dignitaries, business people and basketball folk at First-Ontario Centre, where they’ll play their home games beginning in May of 2019.
They’re one of the Original Six in the Canadian Elite Basketball League, the new pro loop that will run a 20-game schedule (10 at home) for each team from May through August.
A Honey Badger is one of the world’s fiercest animals, somewhat akin to a marten. It’s also featured in a viral video and in popular internet memes.
The other five teams are located in Guelph, St. Catharines, Edmonton, Saskatoon and the Fraser Valley (Abbotsford, B.C.).
League CEO Mike Morreale, a Hamilton native and former Ticat receiver, said the league
will comprise roughly “60 to 70 per cent Canadians” and the rest will be imports, not necessarily all from the U.S. Morreale added that the eventual goal is a dozen teams and a seventh may join before the league opens next year. In that case, the schedule would expand to 24 games, 12 at home.
It will be a single-division loop
with the three western teams coming east to play during the season, and vice-versa. “Travel is part of the costs in this league,” Morreale said.
Those costs will all be borne by the head office of the league, which is owned and financed by Niagara River Lions majority owner Richard Petko, the CEBL’s lead investor who has
a small handful of silent partners.
The St. Catharines-based River Lions have moved to the CEBL from the National Basketball League of Canada, the domestic fall/winter pro loop.
The new league will sign the players (none are yet signed) and pay the salaries of players and all other costs associated with the individual franchises.
Each franchise will have a local staff and president. Hamilton’s president is Burlington resident John Lashway, who was with the Toronto Raptors for their first 13 years and has also been a consultant to the Tiger-Cats.
Centralization will increase operating efficiencies, Petko said, but the ultimate goal is to fortify the markets and overall product, then eventually sell off every team.
“One of the downfalls of every league that has opened in Canada has been weak local ownership,” Petko told The Spectator. “This way, we control the ownership. We know what we have; we know our budgets. We’re not four people who put together 100 grand, bought a franchise, and then don’t have five more dollars to operate it.
“There’s a two-year solid business plan here of pumping money into these markets and making it work,” Petko said.
“We want owners who come in here to see a strong product, a polished product,” he added.
“We want to build a business base, and fan base, and if someone wants to walk into the Hamilton market, or the Guelph market, and say ‘I’m ready to invest,’ they can do it.
“They’ll pay the price for that, but we’re putting in a lot of effort and professionalism to create value.”
He said that the current ownership has invested “in the millions” in the league.
Petko says there are not enough “hard-core” basketball fans in Canada to make that their critical fan base; so the selling points will be the game itself, and a family-friendly, party atmosphere that will start before a game, then continue through and after it.
Lashway said the Honey Badgers would be using the plaza outside FirstOntario Centre for pre- and postgame festivities, an advantage of a warm-weather season.
Morreale said that 60 to 70 per cent of the players would be Canadian.
The league has identified 160 Canadian players who play professionally around the world. Petko theorizes that a significant percentage of those would want to supplement their income at home after their leagues finish play for the year.
There will be no league salary cap, he said, because a cap is difficult to police and, outside of the NBA, the “law of supply and demand” keeps most professional basketball salaries low.
Lashway said that Honey Badgers tickets will go on sale in the fall.
“We’d like to keep it generally between $10 and $25, with discounts for season’s tickets and family packs.”