Porter wants semi-autonomous NBL

Urban Knights Basketball Club Manager Gordon Porter wants local basketball’s premier competition, the National Basketball League (NBL), to become a semi-autonomous entity. This means the league should be managed by a board of directors and an independent chairman, similar to Professional Football Jamaica (PFJ), operators of the Jamaica Premier League.

Porter says it is standard practice the world over for top leagues in any sport to be governed by an incorporate organisation and not by national associations.

He says this is only way the nation’s top basketball tournament can be resurrected and achieve its true potential.

“I have been championing the cause for the NBL to become a semi-autonomous entity, like the PFJ,” he said. “An incorporate entity with a board of directors and an independent chair and vice-chair that is responsible for overseeing and administering the NBL.

“The NBL hasn’t attracted any corporate sponsorship over the last seven years, while the PFJ in a matter of weeks, in COVID-19 time, was able to generate in excess of a $100 million.

“So the NBL is not going to attract significant funding over the next several years unless significant changes are made,” he said.

Porter is of the view that investment in the NBL would also regalvanise the sport at all levels, but Jamaica Basketball Association (JABA) President Paulton Gordon says the association authorised NBL clubs to create such an organisation but progress has been stalled by the pandemic.

“We suggested that two years ago,” Gordon said. “It is the teams that would have to put this together. But we put the suggestion on the table that we don’t necessarily want to run the NBL, we want an independent body to run it.”

Gordon says that Porter was one of those charged with organising the new body.

“They were supposed to put a team together to see how they can do that with the NBL, and Mr Porter was supposed to be a part of that, and I suggested that he could possibly lead that initiative,” he said.

“But nothing has happened over the last year and a half due to COVID, that has slowed down everything.”

NOT SUPPORTED

Porter admitted having the discussion, but says that JABA’s words were not supported by its actions, and he believes it is because the association is having a hard time letting go, as it sees the NBL as a primary source of revenue.

“Over a year ago, a meeting was held and that was discussed,” Porter said. “Another meeting was held involving executives from the JABA group and I was asked to be present and I presented a document I prepared.

“But the sentiment coming out of that meeting was not in favour of such a move being made.

“But the challenge is that it has to be formalised and put in writing, to say this is the way we want to go, and that was not done.

“The PFJ was a joint effort with the JFF (Jamaica Football Federation), so it has to involve the association. Corporate Jamaica must also see that it is an endeavour in association with other stakeholders.

“So nothing in writing was ever prepared to giving us formal authorisation. So they say it but their actions don’t support it.”

livingston.scott@gleanerjm.com