• Home
  • FIBA
  • EuroLeague
  • NBA/NCAA
  • National Leagues
  • Podcast
  • Features
  • More
  • Contact

Grimag

  • FIBA
  • EuroLeague
  • NBA/NCAA
  • National Leagues
  • Podcast
  • Features
  • More

FIBA’s new international tournament rules: Capitulation, silent collusion or just plain selling out?

November 13, 2012

Apologies from BallinEurope for not weighing in on this … thing until this morning, but after rereading it for the nth time, BiE felt the rant building but wanted to avoid posting an overly emotional response. Perhaps a day and a good night’s rest would temper my viewpoint; maybe upon waking this morning, we’d all discover after logging in to FIBA.com that the Eurobasket manipulation had all been a smokescreen for the hiring of Mike D’Antoni. Or something.

Or does one…?

Nope. There it is, still mocking those who have loved the Eurobasket tournament (not to mention the FIBA Americas tourney, the FIBA South American Championship, the FIBA Asia Championship, etc.): “FIBA announced at its Central Board meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that it will go ahead and implement a new format and calendar of competition beginning in 2017…”

BallinEurope spent much of the day yesterday thinking about a discussion in May 2010. It seems like forever ago now: Since that Euroleague Final Four, international basketball has seen the NBA player lockout, the notable absence of some top names from Eurobasket 2011 due to insurance issues, the 2012 Olympic Games, and the announcement of a timetable for David Stern’s retirement.

Before all that, BiE was podcasting with Euroleague Adventures and Frankie Sachs of Euroleague.net in Paris. ELA’s Nick Gibson brought up the topic of FIBA, calling them out for one reason or another. At that time, BiE defended the international organization with a point that BiE still believes: That the business of FIBA is to foster the game’s development from the grassroots levels in all nations; the tournaments make a great show but ultimately are not FIBA’s raison d’etre.

Today? BallinEurope is just about come to a 180º change in viewpoint on the FIBA-is-good-guy stance. Cracks appeared in the façade between the player lockout and the Eurobasket 2011 tournament: Thanks to the temporary suspension of certain agreements between the NBA and FIBA temporarily suspended in the wake of the player lockout in America, national squads were forced to cover insurance costs on NBA players. While Team France and Team Russia got their players’ issues sorted in due time, the extra insurance proved a prohibitively expensive proposition for some European countries in particular.

BiE realizes that a contract is a contract, but finds it hard to believe that FIBA couldn’t have marshaled some resources and/or cash to support mid-level European sides with potential international marquee names. FIBA’s disturbing inaction during this crisis within a crisis seemed to be telegraphing the message that, yes, the desires of a few dozen American (and one Russian) businessman, i.e. NBA franchise owners, and a handful of private insurance agents do in fact outweigh the needs of the rest of the basketball world.

Hell, in yesterday’s announcement FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann proclaimed that “National teams are the locomotive of basketball in each country. We need to protect and enhance their role.” He presumably meant going forward, because where was such protection in 2011?

Of course Baumann chased this remark with “At the same time, clubs invest daily into our sport and their investment also needs respect and protection.” In newspeak terms, “clubs” here surely means “NBA clubs and possibly three or four of the larger European clubs.” As NBA teams often deny players the right to play national team ball in the offseason or said players decline due to concerns about the wear-and-tear of the professional season, the FIBA decision on international tournaments essentially endorses the supremacy of NBA ball over the national teams.

In adopting a soccer-like format, the organization announced that “The qualification period for the [2019] FIBA Basketball World Cup will be held over the course of two years and consist of six windows which will be in November (2017), February, June, September, November (2018) and February (2019).” In addition, “The qualification for the 2020 Olympics will be through the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup and four Olympic Qualifying Tournaments to be held in four zones.”

The schedule through 2020 would look like this:

2013: Eurobasket Slovenia
2014: World Cup in Spain
2015: Eurobasket Ukraine
2016: Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero
2017: Eurobasket TBD
2017-18: World Cup qualifiers
2019: FIBA World Cup
2019-20: Olympic qualifiers
2020: Olympic Games in Istanbul, Madrid or Tokyo

The key date in there is 2017 – because that’s when the Eurobasket tournament becomes irrelevant. Qualifiers for next prestige tournament, the 2019 FIBA World Cup a.k.a. David Stern’s baby (and make no mistake about it; it’s definitely at least an adoptee of El Jefe), only begin in November of that year. The Eurobasket and other FIBA-backed continental tournaments have suddenly become dead ends: Now what NBA player will want to participate in that? What top-drawer Euroleague player, for that matter?

One interesting date on the timeline and a bonus for certain interests (not to mention The Stern Legacy, at least in the short-term view) is 2014. Stern has long endorsed increasing the importance of the World Cup tournament and if you have to ask why, well, you haven’t been paying attention, as the excellent Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports succinctly headlined in June, “NBA hoping to generate more revenue with World Cup of Basketball proposal.”

BiE realizes that business is business, but is it really necessary for the NBA to attempt to lay waste to the hopes of fledgling national basketball programs – those same programs whose talent and fans they hope to poach for ticket sales, TV packages and paraphernalia?

Stern will have been out of the NBA commissioner’s seat for six months when the ’14 World Cup tips off, but given the man’s success, it’s impossible to believe that Adam Silver won’t be pushing The Stern Agenda for long into his own tenure. Unfortunately, said agenda reportedly has even more insidious plans for international basketball.

In Wojnarowski’s piece, the issue of another seeming Stern-led pet project, “the league’s motivation for pushing to enter an under-23 team for future Olympics” was advanced; the talk on this subject during and following the last Games indicates that this is more than musing: Reducing the importance of Olympic freaking basketball is clearly on the radar of NBA power players who “would be a lot more comfortable letting star players play internationally if they’re sharing in the revenue” – something that just can’t happen in The Olympics.

Meanwhile, the 2014 World Cup could be the most star-studded international basketball tournament ever. With the Eurobasket already tainted by its future status of “irrelevant” and Team USA apparently destined to be sending a younger, more in-development side to the ’16 Olympic Games, the ’14 Cup will be the last top-level international tournament until 2019 – at which time we’ll probably be watching the FIBA/NBA Turkish Airlines Google Basketball World Cup.

No matter: Fans will be glued to the tube, pundits will apply the superlatives, FIBA folks will proclaim a great future for the FIBANBATAG World Cup and Silver will be basking in the glow. Basketball aficionados can then “look forward” to surely disenheartened play at Eurobasket 2015 and a distinctly non-Dream Team including Olympics one year later.

Though FIBA spun the positive reaction to the changes from luminaries such as Vincent Collet and Ingo Weiss, the surely more widely-felt dissension was verbalized by Lithuanian Basketball Federation secretary general Mindaugaus Balciunas in a forthright and surprisingly calm response.

Lithuania has historically had problems fielding its best team since after Barcelona ’92 due mostly to NBA constraints and Balciunas therefore represents one of the programs with the most to lose under the new international tournament framework. Alleging that FIBA heads did not consult with any related stakeholders (e.g. FIBA Europe, Euroleague, ULEB) in drawing up the plans, Balciunas maintains that “It can be said that the reform was done with closed eyes. FIBA hired former FIFA and UEFA experts – that’s why the football model is blindly copied. I’m not sure if this path has a future…”

Nicely summarized, but BiE would respectfully disagree on one point: The eyes of the FIBA brain trust are wide open, focused on the prize. And apparently they’ve decided that prize is approbation from the NBA. FIBA is apparently now willing to hawk neutralized, inferior products with its own brand name slapped all over them, proving that their sellout price is pretty low, indeed.

Nov 13, 2012ballineurope
Powered by Sidelines
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
This post was published on November 13, 2012
You decide: Who should be the new BallinEurope logo? Should “Pau” be retired?Welcome to New Mexico: Donatas Motiejunas demoted by Houston Rockets
Comments: 22
  1. RIP
    12 years ago

    This is all 100% caused by David Stern and the greedy NBA owners like Mark Cuban. The next step will be when they announce that the NBA is now in control of the Basketball World Cup.

    The NBA saw that recently the Euroleague, big Euroleague clubs, Olympics basketball, and big FIBA tournaments like the World Championship and EuroBasket had become a major threat to the NBA’s control of basketball revenues.

    So they have basically strong handed FIBA into this and FIBA acquiesced. The Olympics denied their plans so far, but you know they will keep pushing it. Now, these changes have basically made it much harder for other teams to compete with Team USA, just like all of these constant rules changes to FIBA rules do also. With them saying even more rules changes are coming soon.

    The Euroleague, for its part, is basically just going along with it, because they don’t have much control at this point. European basketball really took a MAJOR BLOW with these changes the NBA wants though.

    Now the biggest even in European basketball, the EuroBasket is basically totally marginalized. This is done by design by the NBA, in order to erode European basketball development, and make it easier for Team USA to dominate at the Basketball World Cup.

    It will also greatly negatively affect the Euroleague and Eurocup, because the talent pool will shrink due to the negative effect this will have on European basketball federations.

    Basically, this is the dream child of Stern, Cuban, and some people at ESPN. The solution however for European basketball would be to simply ignore this and for all of the European national teams to refuse to compete anymore in tournaments that the USA plays at.

    The NBA and USA Basketball isn’t playing fair anymore. They are staring to be seriously threatened by European national teams and the Euroleague, and they are doing this to try to eliminate that threat.

    ReplyCancel
    • Ws
      12 years ago

      Threat? As in an a competive threat? No. There is no competive threat to Team USA. This is merely about money. Plain and simple. Nba owners are protecting their investments. With gauranteed contracts they are doing the right thing. Smart business move by Cuban, Stern and the rest. You would do it if you were them.

      ReplyCancel
  2. Locke
    12 years ago

    The President of the Hellenic Basketball Federation talked about this and said that they must implement a rules system for the refs so that refs from all FIBA zones must follow the same interpretation of the rules in all tournaments.

    Due to how the Americas zone refs called games at the Olympic qualifying tournament, which cost Greece a place at the Olympics.

    http://www.sport24.gr/Basket/EuropeBasket/o_g_vasilakopoylos_sto_sport24_gr_gia_tis_allages_ths_fiba.2008480.html

    So much for all of the BS comments here that “Greek fan boys” were the only ones saying the refs screwed Greece at that tournament.

    ReplyCancel
  3. mike
    12 years ago

    Well, this is what I’ve been saying for some time. The NBA is the big kahuna in world basketball since most stars are in the NBA. It’s all about revenue, and you can be sure the NBA is planning to dominate the new World Cup going forward.

    ReplyCancel
    • Mike
      12 years ago

      Team USA will definitely NOT win that 2014 world cup.

      ReplyCancel
      • Gabe
        12 years ago

        Yes like you said about the 2008 Olympics, or the 2010 World Championships, or the 2012 Olympics. Wake me up when the US actually loses a tournament again, Right now they are undefeated in the last three and are the prohibitive favorites for 2014.

        ReplyCancel
  4. Spencer
    12 years ago

    I don’t fully understand the rationale of why this tournament change is a bad thing. Perhaps I’m missing something. To me, it seems that FIBA took steps to get more teams involved in the World Cup tournament, more home games, and protect the players from a heavy workload. Also, how does this show that the NBA is driving this for their own benefit?

    Any further insight you can provide would be helpful. I’m trying to understand the entire picture here.

    Thanks,

    ReplyCancel
    • Mike
      12 years ago

      It’s not making the world cup bigger than the Olympics that is bad, it’s them eliminating the value and importance of the EuroBasket. Americans don’t freaking get it, especially I have seen an idiot names “Gabe” claim here for years that the EuroBasket is a “minor regional qualifier that no one takes seriously or cares about”……..

      Americanm’s don’t have the intellectual capacity to grasp that in Europe the EuroBasket is HUGELY important and a HUGE deal. I know MANY MANY MANY basketball fans in Europe that consider EuroBasket to be more important than their national leagues, the Euroleague, the Olympics, the basketball world championship, etc.

      For MANY Europeans the EuroBasket is the biggest thing in the world of basketball and that is definitely the tournament that led to the development of basketball in Europe.

      NOT the NBA, NOT the Olympics like stupid Americans claim. It was the EuroBasket that led to the development of the sport in Europe.

      Taking away EuroBasket from Europeans is basically the same thing as taking away Olympics basketball from Americans.

      ReplyCancel
      • Gabe
        12 years ago

        I really don’t understand how it is taking away Eurobasket or even the other zone qualifiers. Eurobasket is a qualifier and they’re still having the qualifying games for the Olympics and World Cup. They’re just taking away the title and changing the dates.

        I guess it’s a power play of FIBA and the NBA to take over Eurobasket because Eurobasket I think is sort of separate. If I understand this correctly they’re going muscle out Eurobasket by making it irrelevant because it won’t be a qualifying tournament. But they’re creating new qualifying tournaments and I assume these new qualifying tournament to be zone based. So the new European zone qualifying tournament will basically become the new Eurobasket. Yes the date will change and the control of the tournament would be different but it would still be the best European teams competing in a tournament format.

        The only difference I could see is if they make these qualifiers like the Olympic qualifying event and don’t have a championship game so teams just play until they qualify or get eliminated but I see now reason or mention of doing that. So they are still going to have zone tournaments with zone champions so it is not getting rid of Eurobasket really, except in name. At least how I read it.

        ReplyCancel
  5. Kyle
    12 years ago

    For all the talk about how the NBA is behind this, the article glosses over that the NBA like FIBA Europe, Euroleage etc. had no say in the changes.

    After all why would the NBA in promoting the new World Cup set up a qualification tournament that they have no intention of letting any of their players participate in?

    This idiocy is 100% on FIBA.

    ReplyCancel
    • Mike
      12 years ago

      No it is not. US media has written many articles about this over the last year or two. It is totally a creation from Stern and Mark Cuban.

      ReplyCancel
  6. Vincent
    12 years ago

    I still am kind of hazy on how this would be a detriment. I think having the Basketball World Cup not in the same year as the FIFA World Cup is a smart move. Expanding the tourney to 32 teams could mean more slots for a couple of more teams from the Americas, Africa, and Asia which would grow the game a bit.

    As for the EuroBasket and FIBA America’s, I am not real deep on the ins and outs of these tourneys but it seems that it would be ok. Maybe some help on these issues though.

    ReplyCancel
  7. Mike
    12 years ago

    EuroBasket generates huge revenues for European basketball federations and now those revenues will be greatly reduced. It’s bad for European basketball, but good for the NBA. That’s basically what it comes down to.

    ReplyCancel
    • Gabe
      12 years ago

      So I think I understand what is going on now. It’s not that they’re getting rid of Eurobasket. It’s just that it’s being taken over by the NBA and FIBA. And this is bad for European basketball because now the NBA is going to get the money from the tournaments which would have gone to national teams which the national teams would have used then to develop local talent?

      This begs to ask if these tournament are going to be now run by the NBA and “for profit” since the national teams could be seen as “non-profit” does that mean the players, especially the superstars are going to demand a salary? Is FIBA and the NBA going to play each player and their club team a certain amount to have them participate? And I assume it would be for all players and all leagues. And how are they going to negotiate how much each player is worth, a percentage of their salary? Will there be salary caps? Are national teams going to become like professional teams with team budgets and such? This really raises so many questions.

      ReplyCancel
  8. Russ
    12 years ago

    It’s not about players’ salaries and not about national teams going to become like professional teams. You guys forget that there is FIBA and there’s FIBA Europe. EuroBasket is a tradition founded in 1935 with the best european teams competing for the trophy every two years. Now FIBA and NBA decide to have it every four years and make it irrelevant in terms of qualification to world cup or olympics. Also NBA wishes to ban it’s players from playing for national teams in all the competitions except of World Cup. These qualifications are total B.S. I mean how would one expect NBA players (and even from Euroleague for that matter) to compete for the national teams during regular seasons or even playoffs time ? The NBA’s main interest is to make money out of World Cup, since they can’t do that out of EuroBasket or Olympics (because of IOC). That is why they are ruining EuroBasket now and will try to do the same to Olympics by implementing some sort of age restriction in the near future. In that case there will only be one major international tournament in the world, NBA makes good money, best players got to rest during summers, NBA teams’ owners are happy and all the fans are busted.

    ReplyCancel
    • Gabe
      12 years ago

      Okay but there’s still one thing I don’t get. If the NBA is going to ban it’s player from playing in all competitions but the World Cup then how will the qualifying work? If the best players in the world cannot compete in the qualifiers does that mean that it will be up to national teams “B”, “C” and even “D” teams to qualify for the World Cup? That is insane. The qualifications will just be random with nations “minor” league teams competing in the qualifying tournaments and which ever country is lucky to have the best players from some obscure league ill get to play in the World Cup with a totally different team of NBA players. That can’t be what is going on.

      ReplyCancel
  9. Russ
    12 years ago

    Indeed it is insane. To make it look less insane they postponed age limit for olympics basketball for awhile, but sooner or later this will happen too.

    http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2012/11/11/3630506/fiba-adopts-major-world-cup-qualification-changes-putting-nba

    They say it officially that “FIBA hopes the changed schedule will address some concerns NBA teams have about wear and tear from too much summer play.” So NBA doesn’t want it’s players to play during summer. Now the question will NBA let its players play during regular season in November or February or during playoffs in June ?
    It’s irrelevant for team USA cause they will still qualify no matter what, but this sure weakens the rest, especially European teams.

    ReplyCancel
  10. Gabe
    12 years ago

    Here is an NBA.com article about the change:

    http://www.nba.com/2012/news/11/15/fiba-nba-world-cup.ap/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpts

    It seems that:
    1. NBA (and top Euroleague players) will still participate in the qualifiers.
    2. As I didn’t really understand the qualifiers will be in the teams home country. So it won’t be a zone tournament like Eurobasket or FIBA Americas championship but a team would play a few home games in their country and then travel to some another countries in their zone. I don’t follow soccer at all but I think this is how it is done on soccer.

    I still think it’s a horrible thing but one positive is teams are going to be able to play meaningful games in their home countries.

    ReplyCancel
  11. DallasTexasSaqartvelo
    12 years ago

    I think this is a great thing and am really excited about it! I can’t wait to see Team USA play a meaningful home game here, I think it would be really fun to see them play in person.

    I am disappointed because Eurobasket was cool, but sometimes change is a good thing.

    ReplyCancel
  12. DallasTexasSaqartvelo
    12 years ago

    I think this is a great thing and am really excited about it! I can’t wait to see Team USA play a meaningful home game here, I think it would be really fun to see them play in person.

    I am disappointed because Eurobasket was cool, but sometimes change is a good thing.

    ReplyCancel
  13. DallasTexasSaqartvelo
    12 years ago

    Same can be said for Georgia…. Eurobasket will never be there, nor will any tournament…. but I can’t imagine how cool it would be to see Tony Parker and France or Pau Gasol and Spain roll into Tblisi for a qualifier…. That would be amazing.

    ReplyCancel
  14. Vic
    12 years ago

    Why all the criticism? Look at the teams rosters for the last decade. Most of the best NBA and EL players have declined to play at the Eurobasket in order to rest. This had serious remifications for European basketball, since the best countries did not always qualify for WC’s and Olympics. Nor did the best countries win the Eurobasket.

    This phenomenon started with the previous Serbia (Stojakovic generation) a decade ago and it was prevalent with Greece for the last five years. But also players from other countries have declined the invitation to play for Eurobasket; Papaloukas, Diamantidis, Kirilenko, Okur, Tony Parker, Turiaf, Holden, Nowitzky, Bargnani are just but a few players who wanted to rest during the summers. And who could blame them? Playing every year without interruption.

    This was very bad Eurobasket, because we never had the opportunity to watch the teams at full strength. Yet, if the Eurobasket will be organised every four years it will be a unique tournament. And since it includes almost all of the very best players (it would be immoral to decline), winning the Eurobasket will be quite an achievement. For this reason the tournament will probably attract more fans.

    Also, I don’t think it is bad for the development of European basketball as some suggested. Because countries like the Netherlands, Britain and Sweden may have an oppurtunity to play against full packed teams like Spain, Russia , Greece, France etc. in the qualifying stages. While at the same time, coaches can experiment on different talented players during official games. Rather than finding out how they perform during the big event.

    And even if the NBA decides to put an age limit on the olympics. That may be as tragic as it sounds. Because the WC will shine more than ever.

    ReplyCancel
Pingbacks: 5
  1. Podcast: Interview with wheelchair hoops legend Patrick Anderson; rants and raves on FIBA, D’Antoni, Euroleague underdogs | Sports Book Gambling
    12 years ago
  2. Podcast: Interview with wheelchair hoops legend Patrick Anderson; rants and raves on FIBA, D’Antoni, Euroleague underdogs | Betting Comps
    12 years ago
  3. Hoops World Cup will be played on years opposite soccer – USA TODAY | World Cup Soccer
    12 years ago
  4. Podcast: Interviews with Ettore Messina, Viktor Khryapa; ruminations on, well, a lotta stuff | Sports Book Gambling
    12 years ago
  5. Podcast: Interviews with Ettore Messina, Viktor Khryapa; ruminations on, well, a lotta stuff | Betting Comps
    12 years ago

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

ballineurope
12 years ago 27 Comments FIBA, More, NBA/NCAA2014 FIBA World Cup, 2016 Olympic Game, 2019 FIBA World Cup, 2020 Olympic Games, Adam Silver, David Stern, Eurobasket 2013, Eurobasket 2015, Eurobasket 2017, FIBA, FIBA Europe, Lithuania, Mindaugaus Balciunas, NBA, Patrick Baumann
Recent Posts
Salt Lake Summer League 2025: Team Breakdowns, Betting Angles & Final Forecasts
3 days ago
From Nolan Traore to Noa Essengue, we break down the top European prospects in the NBA Draft
Top European NBA prospects for the 2025 Draft
5 days ago
Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a Lock for Finals MVP?
20 days ago
Categories
Recent Posts
Salt Lake Summer League 2025: Team Breakdowns, Betting Angles & Final Forecasts
Top European NBA prospects for the 2025 Draft
Is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a Lock for Finals MVP?
Tags
EuroLeagueNBAYouTubeReal MadridCSKA MoscowFC BarcelonaFIBAOlympiacosPanathinaikosZalgiris KaunasACBSpainMaccabi Tel AvivRicky RubioTeam SpainLos Angeles LakersMontepaschi SienaPartizan BelgradeLithuaniaIrelandGermanyPau GasolItalyTeam LithuaniaTurkeyTeam FranceCaja Laboral BaskoniaLietuvos RytasFenerbahce ÜlkerGreeceJuan Carlos NavarroSerbiaSan Antonio SpursTony ParkerMinnesota TimberwolvesFranceEuroleagueDirk Nowitzkibasketball highlightsTeam RussiaALBA BerlinEuroCupDallas MavericksTeam USAEuroBasket 2011
Share
0
Facebook
ABOUT
BallinEurope.com was founded in September 2007 by Christophe Ney (who now runs the excellent scouting-themed website European Prospects) and Tobias Seitz, both then bloggers for FIBA.com with over 10 years’ worth of experience in the professional basketball world each. The mission then was to “provide a very unique perspective of Basketball in and about Europe.”
Most Commented
Why Andrei Kirilenko and CSKA Moscow must win the Euroleague
13 years ago
180 Comments
Euroleague Transfers Table 2008/2009
17 years ago
168 Comments
A week in highlights: Spanish block party, mighty Milos, Utah rap and some dude dunking in L.A.
14 years ago
139 Comments
Archives
Get In Touch

Email: emmetryan@gmail.com

Name: Emmet Ryan

2014 © BallinEurope. Join JCI Dublin