Basketball is rising to become China's No 1 sport following the
huge success of the Chinese Amateur Basketball Open (CBO)
competition this year.
The Chinese Basketball Administrative Centre (CBAC) is confident
the amateur event will become a platform to develop more fans and
even pro players.
The CBAC believes basketball will become the nation's top sport,
surpassing football and even table tennis in the near future.
"CBO is the biggest tournament in China for amateurs. We
launched it late last year and it has been going well beyond the
expectation," said Li Yuanwei, director of CBAC, the sport's
governing body
"There were far more fans and players involved in the tournament
than we have expected. And the national finals in Beijing wrapped
up a successful year."
The finals, which were concluded last week, were divided into
two groups according to the age.
The Zhuhai Duty Free Group team was the champion in the Open
Group (from 18-60) after beating Harbin Institute of Technology
54-46 while the Yantai Sanhe Group team won the Jiyi Group (above
40) after edging Helongjiang Yunyan Group team 68-57.
"We are glad to see that there are so many passionate players
taking part in the tournament. Whether old or young, they showed
the determination and discipline on the court," said Li.
"It is the same to every sport. Public participation is the
grassroots for a sport's development.
"On one hand, we have to prepare the national team for the 2008
Olympic Games. On the other hand, we should never neglect the
significance of the amateur development."
Li believed more will join in the next year. "The inaugural CBO
drew attention from fans, players and also companies," he said.
"It is just a beginning. We are determined to stick to the
efforts and I am confident CBO will help lift nation's basketball
to a new level in the near future."
Further reform
CBO also has pushed the officials to attempt deeper reforms on
the sport. "We have learned lots of lessons and also benefited a
lot from the reform of the CBO," 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."
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.
"In terms of the number of teams and players, CBO is the biggest
one. But compared to CBA (nation's premier pro league) and CUBA
(the top league for university students), CBO is not as influential
as them. But CBO has the potential to become the most popular
basketball event in the future."
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.
Non-Chinese basketball fans, living in China for more than a
year, will also be able to join the fun.
(China Daily October 11, 2006)
