C-E-B-L Pitching Month-Long Tournament Format to Ontario Government For Its Second Season

It’s beginning to look like the second season for the Canadian Elite Basketball League will be nothing like its first, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The C-E-B-L was slated to start the 2020 campaign two weeks ago, but Friday issued a statement in which they revealed a contingency plan for a single site tournament. The seven-team league, including the defending champion Saskatchewan Rattlers, have proposed to the Ontario government that the teams report to a nine-day training camp in one hub city on July 1st. A seven-team round-robin would begin July 11th with two games per day. From there, six teams would advance to the playoffs with the championship game on July 26th. The C-E-B-L has also approached the federal government for a five million-dollar loan after the league was deemed ineligible for any of the federal business support programs in place because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Following is the statement from the C-E-B-L…..

STATEMENT FROM THE CANADIAN ELITE BASKETBALL LEAGUE REGARDING CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR SINGLE SITE TOURNAMENT

“For the past two months we have been methodically working through a number of contingency plans that could enable us to play in 2020 under the traditional format of a regular-season or under any number of innovative formats. We have known that ultimately any actions we may take will be dictated by public health and government officials. Our priorities align with theirs-keeping the health and safety of all people at the forefront of our decisions. While nothing has been ruled out at this point, we are presently focused on exploring what may be possible with a single-site tournament event in Ontario. As part of the contingency planning we have been engaged with the appropriate federal and provincial leaders around protocols related to players, coaches, team officials, venue staff, and fans. Pertinent to all of our contingency plans, as we announced earlier this month, we formally submitted a request to the federal government for a modest loan of $5 million after determining that our league is ineligible for federal business support programs that had been announced. We are awaiting a decision on our request. We have also been as involved as any professional sports league in the province’s back-to-play planning process for sports organizations. We remain optimistic that CEBL players will be on the court this summer and again, providing world-class pro basketball entertainment to people across Canada. Protecting the interests of our season ticket holders, as well as national and local corporate partners, is integral to all of our planning. As our options become more evident in the weeks ahead, we will be able to provide clarity to our ticket, corporate, and community partners around how their investment in us will be protected.”