Episode #21 of the BallinEurope/heinnews co-hosted “Taking the Charge” podcast series is now online. With the entire Euroleague taking a bye this week, David Hein and yours truly keep the EL-centric talk to a minimum, but stay focused on basketball nevertheless with an interview of Bundesliga CEO Jan Pommer.
Pommer is not only enjoying some nice success as the German league has continuously and consistently broken attendance records, but is also one of the more strident voices sounding off against FIBA’s planned reform (BiE prefers to think of it as “deform”) of international tournament structure…
A few weeks ago in an interview with heinnews, Pommer decried FIBA officials for a serious lack of transparency in financial-planning areas while reckoning that European chances of success in such tournaments would be minimized as NBA and Euroleague players would likely pass on playing in the competitions.
However, a bit of a wrinkle has recently been added to the unraveling story line: On January 31, consumer electronics/appliances producer Beko announced its sponsorship of Eurobasket 2013 and 2014 FIBA World Cup clearly with an eye to further expansion in this area. With Beko established as the main sponsor of the top basketball league in Germany (not to mention Lithuania, Russia, Turkey, and Italy), this could become a bit sticky for Pommer & Co. soon in what might be crossed viewpoints between league and federation.
How does Pommer respond to questions of possible interests clashing? Tune in to find out.
In our “sports movie of the week” segment, we take a look at the greatest basketball movie you may never have heard of: A discoliscious 1979 flick called The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh starring Julius Erving, Meadowlark Lemon and a vision of the pre-David Stern NBA. Crazy, funny stuff to which more space on BallinEurope will soon be devoted…
The entire podcast may be heard here. Thanks for listening and talk to you next week!
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