A. Bitoni Fan
Years ago

BA to push for internationals in Asia

Australian basketball is set to host regular World Cup and Olympics qualifying matches featuring NBA stars, which administrators hope will give the sport a big financial boost locally.

The fiscal turnaround for governing body Basketball Australia will begin with the hosting of men's and women's Olympic qualifiers against New Zealand in Melbourne next month, after which the national teams will begin competing in the Asian confederation.

BA chief executive Anthony Moore said the move will mean Australia's biggest stars, including NBA players Andrew Bogut​, Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills, will play in Australia more regularly, in a similar way to which Australia's Socceroos and women's Matildas teams compete in Asia.

"We'll hopefully have the Olympics next year, before which we are planning a tour to the United States for the men's team [the Boomers], then we will have three matches at home in 2017, four in 2018 and another in February 2019," said Moore. "There is also the Commonwealth Games in 2018 on the Gold Coast, and you can't underestimate having a Commonwealth Games at home."

Several of those qualification matches that lead up to the new basketball World Cup in 2019 and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be played outside the NBA season, meaning the country's best male basketballers would be available for selection.

Moore wants to leverage the increase in home matches to better commercial deals for the sport. He is in the market for a new sponsor for the Boomers, after the expiry of a previous deal with Airbnb at the end of June, at a price he believes is good value for the exposure it could bring.

"Those matches in Asia will be home and away, so imagine if we draw a team like China and play them here and then play them over there. It will be huge."

Both the Boomers and women's Opals teams will play Olympic qualifiers against New Zealand in August. The double-header in Melbourne is almost sold out and will be broadcast on free-to-air television by Nine Entertainment Co.

Moore said the matches, from which BA will make a profit, will help turn around a worrying financial situation at the governing body which has posted consecutive financial losses. "We're heading for a $500,000 turnaround, so that would make a surplus of about $250,000 [in the current 2015-16] year.

He is also in the market for a sponsor to help pay the production costs for the Women's National Basketball League to be broadcast on a commercial free-to-air television network, with negotiations to be begin soon. "We figure if we're going to pay for production costs we should be on the commercial stations to better leverage the sponsorship."

http://www.afr.com/business/sport/basketball-australia-hopes-move-to-asia-will-boost-sponsor-appeal-20150718-gid4c0?eid=cpc:nnn-14omn2224-optim-nnn:outbrain-05/01/2015-outbrain_paid-dom-displayad-nnn-afr-nnn&campaign_code=15caf010&promote_channel=sem&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=paid%20outbrain

Topic #37519 | Report this topic


Curtley  
Years ago

So Australia will no longer be in Oceania? That's big news. Also the commonwealth games are unlikely to have basketball right?

Reply #538032 | Report this post


Matt  
Years ago

Commonwealth games will have basketball as they are hosted in Aus similar to what happened in the 2006 Melbourne games.

Reply #538035 | Report this post


rinse  
Years ago

Did they also mention that BA is cutting ALL funding to the states for High Performance programs... That's right . 100%. This saving is $250k , their surplus.

Reply #538043 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

rinse ^ were is this information from, regarding funding cut? Do you have a factual reference you could provide?

Reply #538045 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

If that's true then Australia will find it hard to keep the development up. Very short sighted of them. But then most good players are now headed to America to get their development . The Cof E are soon only going to get the left over players. Basketball australia need to have a good look at what they are doing , if they don't develop their juniors they won't have good seniors !

Reply #538047 | Report this post


Thunder Jam  
Years ago

Cairns has already been given C'wealth pool games.

Reply #538054 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

Have heard the same re NITP/high performance programs - funding slashed. Originally thought it was just in SA but have heard over the weekend that it is every state.

Terrible form by BA.

Reply #538057 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

What will this mean for the players currently in the NITP program

Reply #538059 | Report this post


GWB  
Years ago

Having more games leading to tournaments may not be a great thing in some respects.

We have already seen Patty Mills lose a roster spot due to not being available for a meaningless European tour, with more NBA players to come and less availability can we really afford this 'culture of commitment'?

There will have to be warm up games for the Asian championships, and there will be a fair few games during the championships. I think Lemanis needs to reconsider his stance.

Reply #538062 | Report this post


GWB  
Years ago

It should be updated to "A culture of reasonable expectations"

Reply #538063 | Report this post


Ricey  
Years ago

I'm fairly sure Patty isn't playing because of recovery still... Think that's been made fairly clear now

Reply #538067 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

Mills lost his spot because he wasn't available for all games. If you assemble a team you need all players for all games, meaningless or not.

Reply #538076 | Report this post


HO  
Years ago

Why is the European tour meaningless GWB?

Reply #538080 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

and are BA going to be paying these players for all these extra tours.
Players sure as hell wont be volunteering if they don't get enough to make a living when they are dragged away from the usual competition time that does in fact pay them like NBA,WNBA,NBL,WNBL, or are BA planning on filling the teams with uni students who can do all their courses on line, and then pay a huge hex fee after 10yrs.
Australia is so far away from the big Euro leagues, so of course Asia would be the obvious choice, but those who are playing in the Asian leagues are paid players, not national representatives.
BA seriously need to rethink their long term plan.

Reply #538111 | Report this post


PeterJohn  
Years ago

IIRC, a consistent performance problem for Boomers teams at Worlds and Olympics for the last decade or so has been losing early in the tournament. They usually have gotten better as tournaments have progressed but never enough to make up for bad starts.

From that point of view, I understand why Lemanis might want to have a policy of going into key tournaments with a stable line-up and a "gelled" (not gelid!) team. Setting that expectation now is better than doing it 6 months out from Rio.

Reply #538114 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

BA sees dollar signs with their new nba/wnba toys at their disposal.

Also where is Paul for some questions? Who pushed this move to the Asian confederation? FIBA or BA? Are NZ moving over as well? How will these extra games fit in with the tight availability of the nba/european players? There is a big difference between selling a home game with Bogut, Mills and Delly as the headliners as opposed to Gibbo, Blanchfield and Damo.

Reply #538115 | Report this post


HO  
Years ago

We are not changing to Asia as I understand - we are still part of Oceania.

The qualification for WC/Olympics has changed for everyone in the world and we now qualify across Asia/Oceania reflecting the world cup approach.

BA had very little to do with this.

Reply #538117 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

States and associations have all the cash and should fund IPT trainings.

Reality in Vic is a lot of the associations are paying players in Big V so surely they can fund a high performance programs.

BA doesn't get access to the dollars/turnover of the associations & states so I understand the cut in cost.

Reply #538137 | Report this post


Cram  
Years ago

"The qualification for WC/Olympics has changed for everyone in the world and we now qualify across Asia/Oceania reflecting the world cup approach. "

That still doesnt make much sense. Is Oceania absorbed by Asia now?

Reply #538139 | Report this post


HO  
Years ago

Cram. No, not as I understand it.

The zones are the same (the zones serve a bunch of other purposes other than qualification for events) but world cup qualification is now more like football used to be for us in some regards. Some home and away series to determine the ranked teams. I think (not sure) there is a possibility that across Asia/Oceania no Oceania team could qualify (if the Asian teams took the allocated spots). I also believe that the third ranked Oceania team gets to compete in this home and away stage.

I just read about it some time ago so not claiming to be an expert on this.

I am not sure what is happening with Euro's, i presume it is also like football and they are qualifying teams into a tournament.

Reply #538141 | Report this post


Anonymous  
Years ago

The NITP program is to develop potential BOOMERS and OPALS - so it is actually under a BA scope to fund - not an association. And if you think clubs/associations are flush in cash you are kidding yourself.

Reply #538143 | Report this post


HO  
Years ago

Cram,

This doesn't help much but...

http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/even/compCalendar/p/openNodeIDs/27290/selNodeID/27290/qualifications.html

Reply #538144 | Report this post


paul  
Years ago

Yeah, the title topic is a bit misleading, BA aren't pushing for it, this is the way it's going to be according to FIBA.

Four qualifying zones for the World Cup - Europe, Asia, Africa and Asia Pacific - with teams playing home & away legs in allotted 'windows' in the calendar.

The WC is then the main qualifier for the Olympics, possibly with the top seven going through, plus the host nation, with a further qualifying tournament held in each of the four regions for the four remaining spots.

Where Oceania will still be separate from Asia is during the continental championship year, where I believe Aus and NZ will continue to play off for the Oceania Championship.

So the calendar will look setting like this:

2019 - World Cup
2020 - Olympics
2021 - continental champs
2022 - women's WC

... and so on. The qualifying windows for the 2019 World Cup are September, November, February and June, starting in Sept 2017 through to Feb 2019, same from 2021 to 2023.

Reply #538204 | Report this post


Cram  
Years ago

Hmmm..a little confusing. But thanks for trying to clarify it guys.

I'd like to know how the Olympic qualifying will work, as you imagine it will be fairly easy to snag one of the 24 spots for the WC in 2019, but then to finish top 7ish in the WC will be VERY difficult most years. I then imagine the next process is like the play in tournament they'll have for Rio next year.

This could result in no Asian (or Oceanian) or African teams though.

Reply #538241 | Report this post


paul  
Years ago

My understanding is there'll be an Olympic qualifying tournament in each of the zones to claim the remaining spots, so a rep from each region would be guaranteed. The question would be whether its the four WC qualifying zones or the five traditional zones, in which case perhaps only the top six from the WC would go through.

BTW, which bit aren't you sure about Cram and Ill have another crack at it.

Reply #538272 | Report this post


LC  
Years ago

Great work on clarifying that Paul.

Spot on.

Reply #538275 | Report this post


Cram  
Years ago

ah ok, that makes more sense. Cheers Paul.

So in the end its kind of the reverse of how its done now, where each zone gets its placed follow by a play in tournament to fill out the rest.

Reply #538284 | Report this post


paul  
Years ago

Kind of, the best teams make it to the Olympics through the World Cup, then the best of the rest from each zone get a second chance through more qualifiers.

Reply #538289 | Report this post


Cram  
Years ago

yeah but in the case of Asia and Africa (and probably Oceania) the effect is basically the same.

Reply #538312 | Report this post




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