Analysis of the Appearance of NCBL (National Community Basketball League) in Malaysia

Everyone has different perspectives on a specific thing which personal perception are influenced by multiracialism and multiculturalism. Be that as it may, the training fields, indoor halls and outdoor courts of mainstream sports such as football, basketball, badminton, and more appear to recount a different story. There is a lack of racial diversity (Komas, 2017). “Malaysians also do not have much opportunity to develop interethnic friendships because schools and workplaces lack diversity, and this is due to a combination of public policy, personal choice, language and cultural differences, political manipulation of ethnic tension, and other factors,” said Dr. Lee Hwok-Aun at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Sukumaran, 2017).

One of the problems appeared because of language where language is considered as a boundary in sports dominated by a single race. There are players or coaches who feel more convenient imparting in their native dialect, without first considering about the individuals who do not talk in that specific dialect. Some may grope constrained to pick the dialect (Komas, 2017). Usually, if most of the members in a sport are from one race, they tend to talk in their local dialect rather than Bahasa Malaysia. The communication barrier makes it difficult for different races to join the sport. To guarantee inclusivity, Bahasa Malaysia and English ought to be the primary dialect of communication for all games in Malaysia. Along these lines, in most cases, athletes should be familiar with Malay or Mandarin to speak with their colleagues. For example, since basketball is overwhelmed by Chinese, the athletes normally used to learn at Chinese schools in Malaysia such as Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina or Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan (Komas, 2017).

The other factor is favoritism and cronyism. Favoritism is favoring a person because of some extraneous feature-membership in a favored group, personal likes, dislikes, and more but not because he or she is doing the best job (Safina, 2015). Cronyism is a more specific form of favoritism, it defined as giving preference to government officials’ especially to cronies whereby referring to partiality towards friends and associates, especially as a proof in the arrangement of hangers-on to office without regard to their capabilities (Arasli & Tumer, 2008). There are coaches who tend to support Malays or Chinese in view of their own pre-imagined ideas and presumptions: ‘some specific race is better in a specific sport’. Regularly, abilities are picked claiming their parents are friends or relatives of the scouting officials (Komas, 2017).

Next is the issue of religion. There is standard sportswear such as, formed leotard in gymnastics, which isn’t allowed in Islam. This is because Islam expects Muslims to cover a few sections of their body. This has prompt Muslims not joining sports like gymnastics, basketball, and swimming. Be that as it may, there are world class Muslim-Malay athletes such as Nur Dhabitah Sabri (diver) and Farah Ann Abdul Hadi (gymnastics) who exceed expectations in their vocation. For example, 21 years old athlete Farah Ann Abdul Hadi, who won six medals altogether, was hammered by a few user on Facebook for wearing a leotard that uncovered the shape of her “aurat”, which alludes to genitalia and different areas of the body such as, thighs, which can be required to be covered according to Islam (Kantor Berita Politik Republik Merdeka, 2017). PAS’ Rantau Panjang MP Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff had inquired as to whether Putrajaya has investigated authorizing Shariah compliance in all issues that involve Muslims. She focused on that the attire utilized by female Muslim athletes that uncover their aurat obviously against with sharak or Islamic standards and “is exceptionally dishonorable” (Sipalan, 2015). Moreover, attires of athletes need to go under review after many complaints about Farah Ann’s leotard. “We take attention of this matter so that this becomes a lesson, in whichever field, including sports, for us to investigate the clothing and attire,” said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom (Lim, 2015).

Race-led and racial imbalances in sports are nothing new. In Malaysia, certain ethnicities have developed a history in a specific game. Along these lines, the youngsters of that ethnicity are more propelled to emulate their ancestors’ footsteps and attempt to exceed expectations in that game. Malays incline toward football and sepak takraw, while Chinese lean toward basketball and table tennis (Komas, 2017).

Malaysia has all kind of tournament which is held on, for example, MWBL, MABA U17 National Championship, Seri Mutiara Cup, ASEAN Basketball League (ABL), SUKMA, National Youth Cup Championship and others (MABA, n.d.-a). Even though Malaysia has plenty of tournament but most of the basketball tournament is played by the Chinese. In the year 2005, MABA has authorized a new event call the National Community Basketball League formally to call as Non-Chinese Basketball League (NCBL, n.d.). All the tournament that is organized by MABA is open to everyone regardless of race to participate in the tournament besides this event. The purpose of having this event because to develop the non-Chinese standard to become better or par with the Chinese community (NCBL, n.d.).

Nowadays, brand positioning plays an important role to attract consumers’, as the right positioning will persuade the potential consumer to purchase the specific product or services. Brand positioning is the brand symbol that works in consumer mind by their thought whether they are normal or exciting about the certain product and service (Dobni & Zinkhan, 1990). It is essentially characterized as the product and brand credits imparted to the mind of the target market. Each consumers’ is unique, and they have various thoughts in their mind about the brand or product. They also have various desires from the brand or product. Positioning is fundamentally identified with people’s mind on how specific services or physical goods or products is intended to focus on the target audience. Marketers essentially communicate to their target audience to ensure the positioning of concept and picture by understanding the minds of consumers (Azmat & Lakhani, 2015).

Henceforth, this study will focus on the perception of basketball player towards NCBL in terms of how NCBL get to increase its population. To understand more about the perception of basketball player and the effectiveness of brand positioning on NCBL, this study will attempt to answer a few questions such as do society change their perception towards basketball in Malaysia that is only played among the Chinese. Besides, is the society aware of the brand positioning of NCBL?

To fill up the gap, researcher intends to explore on the perception of basketball player towards NCBL which is played among the Chinese and in return knows how the society thinks about NCBL which will lead to understanding how NCBL get to create or change NCBL in the minds of customers. However, this study also explores on the effectiveness brand positioning of NCBL whereby researcher can clearly clarify the gap of how NCBL get to create or change basketball in the minds of customers. This study also hopes to tighten the gap of how NCBL adjust target customer perception by having the league. In response to this problem, the purpose of this study is to analyze the appearance of NCBL (National Community Basketball League) and the effectiveness of NCBL on brand positioning.