NBLC Annual Board of Governors Meeting Recap

The National Basketball League of Canada held its end of the season meeting on June 3, 2018 at the Courtyard Marriott hotel in Toronto, Ontario.

The annual face-to-face meeting provided an opportunity for board of governors members to come together to review the past season and examine areas of improvement moving forward. 

"The day long meeting was extremely productive and positive as the discussions focused on ways to improve our league while celebrating our achievements at the same time," said deputy commissioner, Audley Stephenson. "After concluding one of our more smoother seasons from a league operations standpoint where we saw growth and interest in our brand increase, it was great for the board to be collectively reflect on our accomplishments while continuing to explore ideas to enhance our product".

The most significant news from the meeting started at the leadership level where London Lightning owner, Vito Frijia resigned from his position as league president after three years which he assumed at the start of 2015-16 season and Halifax Hurricanes majority owner Mark Lever was nominated and unanimously elected to the position of board chair.

Lever is the head of SaltWire Network, publisher of the Chronicle Herald and 34 other publications and brings tremendous leadership experience to the role. 

Lever said, "I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Vito for the tremendous leadership and in particularly, the financial stewardship he has provided the league during his tenure. Our league would simply not have survived without Vito Frijia. Personally, I hope to work closely with the entire board to build on the foundation that Vito has provided all of us. Thanks to him we can now take this league from surviving to thriving."

Lever went on further to say, "My priority will be to build consensus amongst the board on a best practice approaches to govern our league and provide our professional staff the direction and resources required to operate a professional sports league. Sales and marketing, a search for a commissioner and tightening our rules are the areas of immediate concern."

Lever assumes the new role effective immediately. 

Other meeting highlights include:

Regular Season 
The regular season will run for 4 ½ months long for 40 games to start mid November and conclude at the end of March.

Playoff Structure 
The playoff structure remains the same:
First Round: Best of five (5)
Conference final: Best of seven (7)
Championship: Best of seven (7)

Rules Committee
The formation of a rules sub-committee that will have the responsibility of looking at areas that can be improved and address potential gaps for betterment of the game. The committee will evaluate existing rules and make necessary recommendations to the board as required.

Protected Player List
The deadline for teams to submit their protected player lists to the league office by June 15th and the number of players that can be protected has increased from six to seven players.  Teams have until August 15, 2018 to sign their protected players, after that date unsigned players can start receiving contract offers from other teams. 

Draft Combine
The Draft Combine will tenatively be held in late August at St. Clair College in Windsor. More details to follow at a later date.

Salary Cap
Cap to be increased from $170,000 to $180,000 for the upcoming season.


About NBL Canada

The National Basketball League of Canada (NBLC) is Canada's longest standing professional domestic basketball league being founded in 2011. The NBL Canada consists of (11) teams featuring two divisions, Central and Atlantic. It provides a high quality professional sports entertainment environment to their fans and players and is dedicated to raising the profile of the sport of professional basketball throughout Canada by providing fans with an entertaining experience starting at a community level.