Canadian Elite Basketball League Announces Relocation of its Guelph Franchise to Calgary

The Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) announced Wednesday that its franchise in Guelph is being relocated to Calgary, Alberta to play at WinSport Event Centre starting in the 2023 season. The team will be renamed and rebranded, with a public unveiling of the nickname, logo and colours to be held in the near future. The CEBL will also announce ticketing information at a later date.

“Calgary has been one of our target markets for a long time and relocating a franchise from our smallest market to Canada’s third-largest city will allow the team to remain financially competitive as our league continues to experience tremendous growth,” said Mike Morreale, Commissioner and Co-Founder of the CEBL. “Several potential ownership groups have expressed an interest in bringing a team to Calgary, but none has been able to meet our criteria for ownership. The league will continue to own and operate this franchise as we do nine of our 10 teams until a qualified individual or group emerges.”

General inquiries on the Calgary franchise can be submitted via cebl.ca/CalgaryBasketball. 

The Nighthawks are coming off a 2022 season in which they posted a 10-10 record and finished seventh in the 10-team CEBL. They upset Fraser Valley, which had finished fourth in the regular season, in the opening round of the playoffs before falling to Niagara in the quarterfinals. They posted an overall record of 25-37 (.403) during the franchise’s four seasons (2019: 6-14; 2020: 3-3; 2021: 5-9; 2022: 11-11).

“The City of Guelph, Mayor Cam Guthrie, Sleeman Centre staff, and the community in general have been strong supporters of the Nighthawks and we are grateful for all they’ve done to make the franchise a success in that market under the outstanding leadership of team president Cam Kusch and his staff,” Morreale added. “But the reality is that there is a ceiling in a market of Guelph’s size that will prevent the franchise from being able to compete on a sustained basis. When we launched the CEBL in 2018, it made sense for Guelph to be among our founding franchises. However, we are moving into the country’s largest markets at a pace much faster than we originally anticipated and the economic realities of pro sports forces us to have to make this difficult decision.”

Adding a franchise in Calgary brings the CEBL back to WinSport Event Centre where the league successfully staged its competition window for the Basketball Champions League Americas (BCLA) in March 2022. The BCLA’s annually pit the top pro teams from Central and South America. FIBA, the world governing body for basketball, welcomed Canada into the field for the first time with the CEBL champion Edmonton Stingers representing the country.

Calgary, Canada’s third-largest city and fifth-largest media market, has a strong basketball culture. Minor basketball enrolment in Calgary has more than doubled in the past seven years, and nearby cities like Red Deer have formed new minor basketball associations in the past decade. The University of Calgary men’s basketball program has been one of the nation’s successful for years.

Guelph is just the nation’s 46th largest market and 26th largest media market. It is approximately one hour’s drive time to CEBL teams in Hamilton, Niagara and Scarborough, which enables Guelph area basketball fans to continue to enjoy CEBL basketball. More information about the Nighthawks is available at www.thenighthawks.ca

The CEBL launched in 2018 with six teams in four provinces and despite the pandemic it has expanded to 10 teams in six provinces, making it the largest pro sports league in Canada with further expansion in the planning stages. The CEBL has the highest percentage of Canadian players of any pro league in the country with 71 percent of its current team rosters being Canadian. Players bring experience from the NBA, NBA G League, top international leagues, the Canadian National team program, and top NCAA programs as well as U SPORTS. The only First Division Professional League Partner of Canada Basketball, the CEBL season runs May through August. More information is available at CEBL.ca and @cebleague on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.