The Canadian Elite Basketball League has had a lot to say for itself leading into season seven which tips off on May 11.
Perhaps most importantly, co-founder and commissioner Mike Morreale has hinted that the process of finding private owners for all of the franchises in the 10-team league is nearing completion.
In 2021, the expansion Scarborough Shooting Stars became the first CEBL club to secure private ownership, beginning the next phase of economic growth for the league.
The Vancouver Bandits were the first original six team to find outside ownership, breaking away from the CEBL’s single-entity model in 2022.
At the turn of this calendar year, local owners had been found for five teams – the other three being the Calgary Surge, Edmonton Stingers, and the expansion Winnipeg Sea Bears.
But in the blink of an eye, the keys to the Montreal Alliance and Brampton Honey Badgers were also turned over, leaving just the Ottawa BlackJacks, Saskatchewan Rattlers, and Niagara River Lions under the ownership of CEBL co-founder Richard Petko.
This restructuring of ownership was part of the plan all along and speaks to the CEBL’s core belief that a rising tide lifts all boats.
“When we’re able to get to the point where there’s private ownership across the board, the overall strength of the league improves and that’s inclusive of the teams,” Morreale told BNN Bloomberg.
“So, strong teams equals strong league and vice versa. It’s about maximizing the strengths at the league level and the team level. If you have operators at the team level that are exceeding expectations or doing what we intend them to do, then it allows the league to grow exponentially.”
This is where Drew Green enters the chat.
The Canadian entrepreneur and investor was recently installed as the first-ever independent chair of the CEBL board of governors and also became a co-owner of the league.
Green, widely known for growing the apparel brand INDOCHINO into a global powerhouse, had explored investing in an NBA franchise and had also considered establishing an NBA G-League team in Vancouver before arriving at what seems like a perfect fit with the CEBL.
According to Green’s website – where you will find an impressive basket of holdings that have created over $1 billion in market capitalization for shareholders since 2011 – his vision is centered on three main principles: growth, innovation, and long-term value creation.
So why now?
Green kept in touch with Morreale since meeting at Championship Weekend in 2023 and, after some back-and-forth discussion, jumped at the opportunity presented to him in November 2024.
“When you look out the next 10, 15, 20 years, basketball will continue to grow in this country,” Green told BNN Bloomberg, also saying he intends to align himself with the CEBL for many years to come.
“And [what’s] really, really special is the level of entertainment, the level of athletes and competition that [the CEBL] provides communities across Canada.”
Morreale was impressed by Green’s enthusiasm for the role and his shared vision to increase the CEBL’s presence both in Canada and around the world.
“If you look at our history moving from a single-entity model to what’s now like a hybrid model of sorts, the next step beyond that is selling some of those other teams that [Petko still holds],” Morreale said.
“We’re getting very close to that. Then really looking at what we need to do as a league. So, obviously team profitability, league profitability and growth - and how do we get there?
“What [was] needed at the league office to help us achieve those goals was [finding] an independent chair because it brings someone else into the mix and provides a different point of view.”
Green’s success in elevating start-up businesses and raising capital, along with his passion for basketball were also selling points as the CEBL ambitiously embarks on its next phase of growth.
“We don’t limit ourselves to thinking about just what we can do domestically,” Morreale said. “We think about how we’re perceived and how we’re consumed globally as well.”
Green received an ownership stake at the league level equivalent to the share held by each team, except he does not own a team.
The CEBL is holding back on revealing the valuation of league shares, as well as the value of the teams in general, at least until the potential sale of the remaining teams is complete.
Furthermore, Green is not being relied upon for an infusion of cash (that happens through the privatization of team ownership) but rather to grow and raise the league’s profile in the short, medium, and long term.
Just over a week prior to the start of the season, Tyler Mazereeuw was hired as the CEBL’s first-ever president.
In a press release, the league describes Mazereeuw as someone “with over 20 years of dynamic experience focused on innovation and revenue growth in the sports and entertainment industry” and that he is “joining the CEBL’s executive team at a pivotal stage in the league’s growth.”
To that point, Morreale says the league is in a healthy place and the metrics are there to support his claim.
The CEBL has seen attendance growth for three years in a row and an 89 per cent year-over-year increase in overall attendance since 2022.
In 2024, each CEBL venue had at least one sell out and a league-record 12,327 fans were in attendance to see the Surge host the Stingers at the Saddledome.
Viewership is also on the rise with a 97 per cent increase on TSN since 2022.
9.6 million social media video views were garnered in 2024 and 4.2 million fans follow the league in Canada and internationally, according to the CEBL.
The CEBL is already leveraging the benefits of private ownership as the Alliance will host the BlackJacks in Canada’s first 5-on-5 outdoor professional basketball game.
“A group comes in and is able to take whatever risks are associated with doing an outdoor game like that, and then we support it to make sure that it operates at a high level,” said Morreale, adding that he expects outdoor games to be a recurring event similar to the NHL model.
“In turn, that team or those teams would share whatever profits come from it.”
Billed as the CEBL Summer Classic, the game will be played at IGA Stadium, which is primarily a tennis venue and has a capacity of 11,500 seats for the event.
Of course, growth and expansion plans are always intertwined and Morreale says those conversations are still ongoing as they look towards possibilities for 2026 and beyond.
“We still have probably four markets at the top of the list that would be conducive to that and four markets or even more that we’ve spoken to about the potential of expansion,” Morreale said.
“It’s definitely there. The better we do operating as is, the more opportunities we have on the expansion side. As we continue to grow and the game gets better and the metrics go up and things happen internally, it only allows us to be in a position to find the right owner, the right market, at the right price when we choose to expand.”
We are only left to wonder what the CEBL has in mind next.
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