Jamaica’s premier basketball competition- the National Basketball League - received a tremendous boost today with the announcement of a record 8 million dollar sponsorship injection, courtesy of Jamaica’s leading broadband communications provider, FLOW.   

The announcement was made at the press launch for the 2009 staging of the competition, held at The Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston. The competition will now be called the “National Basketball League, Powered by Flow”.   

In addition, sports marketers and regional broadcasting powerhouse, SportsMax, is also on board as the official television partner and league marketers for this year’s competition. Other sponsors include the Jamaica Observer as official print partner and KLAS FM as exclusive radio broadcaster.  

President of the Jamaica Basketball Association, Ajani Williams revealed that the new look NBL will now consist of 27 teams from all four conferences island wide. “It is now truly a National Basketball League”, Williams stated, “The expanded league will now see 15 teams from the rural conferences joining the established 12 teams in the Southern Conference that traditionally participate in the nations top basketball competition so we’re looking forward to some great basketball over the next 12 weeks.” 

In addition the team of Flow, JaBA and SportsMax will create more entertainment value around the matches such as exciting half time shows featuring top local artists, cheerleading as a part of the weekly entertainment package and a weekly dance-off competition showcasing the talent of dancers island wide.  

The 2009 competition will be staged under the theme “R U Ready for Gameday”, in keeping with the drive to get players and spectators pumped up for the long awaited start to the 2009 season.  

This year’s National Basketball League will be broadcast to over 1 million homes through regional broadcaster SportsMax that broadcasts to 22 Caribbean countries. Flow’s channel 100 will also be used to promote the NBL, while the Jamaica Observer will provide weekly previews and reviews and KLAS will do one broadcast per week in the regular season and live broadcast of the conference finals and the best of 3 final.   

The NBL winner will receive $300,000, while the runner-up will receive $125,000, with $65,000 awarded to the 3^rd place finishers and $40,000 for 4th. Of course the league will also name a Most Valuable Player, and the Rookie of the Year.   

Twenty-seven teams – all twelve 12 teams from the Southern Conference, 5 from Western, 5 from Central and 5 from the Eastern Conference- will contest this year’s staging of the competition, to be played over 12 weeks, starting this Saturday, September 12. There are a number of interesting match-ups during the first week of competition. On tip off day (Saturday September 12th) at the Stadium courts, the defending champions Urban Knights will again face off with Port Royal Bulls who they defeated in last years best of three finals. Other interesting games during the week will be the consistent Majesty Legends vs. Arnett Gardens, Blazing Panthers vs. Tivoli and Portmore Flames trying to slay the St. Georges aggregation   

The top two teams in the Southern conference at the end of the regular season on November 10 will be the top two seeds while the play-offs will feature 3 more Southern Conference teams and winners of the Western, Eastern and Central conferences. These matchups were determined by a random draw at the launch event.  

Flow’s Director of Marketing, Sharon Roper, said that her company was delighted to partner with the island’s top basketball competition.  

“It has always been Flow’s game plan to exponentially increase the level of exposure for the competition as well as elevate how the competition is executed through our involvement. Following our very successful sponsorship of the Flow Champions Cup of football, the Flow team sees this basketball sponsorship as another opportunity to help improve key sporting competitions on the island so that more Jamaican athletes are exposed to both local and international audiences thereby creating more opportunities for growth.”  

Tanya Lee, regional Marketing manager of SportsMax, the marketing managers of the 2009 NBL season echoed those sentiments, 

 “We at SportsMax view our association with the Jamaica Basketball Association’s National Basketball League as a homecoming of sorts. We started out with the NBL on our roster of sports shown back in 2004 when we started as a small channel beaming to homes in Kingston. Now that we have a platform of viewers in 22 Caribbean countries, we are happy to return to the sport, an indication of our firm commitment to propelling the local basketball community to an international audience and also as our way of assisting in developing Basketball."