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Given the comments on the quality of Olympic football, this is sad:
SI Wrote:NBA commissioner David Stern has publicly floated the idea of establishing a maximum age for men's basketball players of all countries at future Olympics that would mirror the rules of soccer, which requires that players in the Olympic tournament be no older than 23, with three exceptions (for players of any age) allowed per roster. The new plan for basketball would enable NBA owners to participate in and eventually profit from the rebranded FIBA World Cup, which -- similar to the soccer World Cup -- would have no limits on age, making it the preeminent international basketball event every four years.
Link
Blech. I see why they want to get some of the "Dream Team" money, but it will make it sort of pointless to watch Olympic Basketball if this happens. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I don't see a FIBA World Cup holding the same catchet & jingoism that would motivate as many of the best NBA players to participate in the off-season as the Olympics currently do.
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I actually like that. I'd prefer there to be a basketball version of the World Cup that is the only event going on for a few weeks, rather than squished in among a bunch of olympic events.
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I wouldn't get your hopes up for a FIBA World Cup being all that spectacular - soccer is much more competitive worldwide than basketball is.
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scooter Wrote:I actually like that. I'd prefer there to be a basketball version of the World Cup that is the only event going on for a few weeks, rather than squished in among a bunch of olympic events.
The problem is that the FIFA World Cup has a much richer history than anything FIBA does. Will they be able to get the best players to participate? There's a history of prominent players skipping the FIBA championship. Iirc, in the last one in Turkey there was no LeBron, Chris Paul, or Kobe (well, Kobe's overrated but he would be there if he wanted to  ) on the US squad, only one Gasol for Spain, Tony Parker and Joakim Noah awol for France, etc. If it's prominence is raised, perhaps we'll see a better turn out, but it seems like we might just end up with two watered-down tournaments whose outcome simply depends on which players show up for their respective teams. That's not much fun.
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NobleHelium Wrote:I wouldn't get your hopes up for a FIBA World Cup being all that spectacular - soccer is much more competitive worldwide than basketball is.
Gotta start somewhere.
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issue is that Basketball (together with stuff such as Baseball and American Football) is that its only really big in America and a small handfull of other countries, and then at best niche sports, more likely to be played in PE than as a hobby, everywhere else. Whereas other sports (Soccer and Team Handball just to take the two sports which most players (prof + Amateur playing in established clubs) worldwide) have a solid core of several nations which together can put something reasonable together.
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NobleHelium Wrote:I wouldn't get your hopes up for a FIBA World Cup being all that spectacular - soccer is much more competitive worldwide than basketball is.
Basketball is far and away the second most popular sport (in terms of country participation) globally, I think. There's definitely scope for a 'World Cup' type event...
(not that this is difficult necessarily; bear in mind that there exists the 'Rugby League World Cup' consisting solely of the home nations from the British Isles, Aus, NZ, PNG and a few Pacific islands  )
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v8mark Wrote:Basketball is far and away the second most popular sport (in terms of country participation) globally, I think. There's definitely scope for a 'World Cup' type event...
(not that this is difficult necessarily; bear in mind that there exists the 'Rugby League World Cup' consisting solely of the home nations from the British Isles, Aus, NZ, PNG and a few Pacific islands )
World Series?
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v8mark Wrote:Basketball is far and away the second most popular sport (in terms of country participation) globally, I think. There's definitely scope for a 'World Cup' type event...
Are there reliable statistics for this sort of thing somewhere?
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