BANKS DIH stepped in at a vital time to partner with the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA) to assist in their senior League.
Yesterday in the company’s conference room, they pledged their support through the Powerade brand and an undisclosed sum of money to boost the stature of the tournament.
Making remarks at the press conference was president of GABA David Carto who updated media representatives on the League’s progress while stating the main purposes of forming the league. “The main intention for us having the league was for us to bring back some sort of vibrancy to basketball in Georgetown and secondly to have seeding for the teams in Georgetown. So far the tournament which started sometime in February is halfway through and is good right now with verbal commitments from other sponsors,” he stated.
The league which consists of 13 Georgetown teams and two West Demerara teams that are playing in a round-robin format set to conclude in May.
Seeding will then be given to the top eight teams which will then face-off in a seven-game playoff with the winners taking home $250 000 while the runners-up will cart off with $125 000 and the third-place finishers will receive $60 000.
Marketing and Sales Executive of Banks DIH Carlton Joao was also present at the presser, he said: “We are happy to come on board with the Powerade brand which will play a roll of hydrating the players during the games and we hope that with this it will lead to other great things in basketball.”
He also said: “One of the things we are not happy about is the attendance and I guess it is because of the type of publicity the league has been getting but we need to change this and we will be doing various ads to advertise where games will be played and when.”
The marketing executive added that coming on to the end, the sport should look forward for more things from the company.
Carto revealed that GABA is still in the process of setting up their scholarship programme for a player from a less fortunate team to further his studies at a tertiary institution in Guyana, namely  the University of Guyana and the Government Technical Institute (GTI).
“We are still in the planning stage of the scholarship programme and we will definitely be looking to get it running soon because they are persons that want to further their studies but cannot do so because of financial reasons,” he disclosed.
Meanwhile, the GABA league will continue this coming weekend at the Burnham hard courts from 16:00hrs on Saturday.