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With the Chinese Amateur Basketball Open (CBO) having more enthusiasts and sponsors get involved, officials from the sport's governing body - Chinese Basketball Administrative Centre (CBAC) voice the confidence and ambition to further promote the all-nation amateur basketball competition and attempt deeper reforms on the sport.

"Though the 2006 season of CBO has not finished yet, we have learned lots of lessons and also benefit a lot from the reform," said Xu Minfeng, director of Development Department of CBAC.

According to Xu, national or international competitions were usually organized by CBAC before while local basketball associations were just asked to offer a few assistances.

Now CBO gives a good chance to push the local associations to help develop the sport.

Xu said CBO gave local associations rights to organize the competition and also to search for sponsors.

"We adopted a new reform in CBO this year. We are dependent on local associations to organize whatever kind of amateur basketball event as a stage of CBO," said Xu. "The associations know the local situations better than us. And they have better ideas as how to host a popular event."

The goal, said Xu, is to help every local association become an entity in the next years. It will be operated independently.

"The goal to make such change is to give local association freedom and right to develop the grassroots basketball."

Xu said a farmers' basketball competition in Anhui last month and an overseas' Chinese basketball tournament in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province last week had made big successes.

"There were so many fans taking part in the competition. We are pleased to see that local associations play more important roles in the tournament."

The increasing popularity also tempts sponsors to join in and CBAC has hired a promotion company to develop the sport's marketing .

"It is a new attempt to make CBO commercialized. So far the marketing of the sport is making rapid progress," Xu said.

CBAC is also determined to deepen the reform next year and believes basketball will become the nation's No 1 sport in the near future.

"We will take more efforts to develop the grassroots of the sport and continue to initiate new reforms."

The competition, with games played between teams in different cities before moving onto provincial competitions, is available to any Chinese citizen over the age of 18. Those non-Chinese basketball fans who have remained in China for over one year will also be able to join in the fun.

Before CBO, CBAC has made a number of reforms in the sport's premier league - China Basketball Association(CBA).

Fourteen professional clubs split into two conferences - a seven-team Northern Conference, and a seven-team Southern Conference. Teams will play each in-conference rival four times during the 38-game regular-season and non-conference opponents two times with top four finishers from each conference qualifying for the eight-team League playoffs.

"To have pro league is not enough. We will invite people from different field to play the sport. We are exploring a mode as how to promote the sport in best ways."

(China Daily June 7, 2006)