The Bayi Rockets will resume their quest to be champions of China's
top basketball league CBA tonight, taking on the Liaoning Hunters
in the Ningbo Youngor Center. This marks the domestic season's
second phase after being halted by the
Asian Games tournament for over a month.
However, the spotlight in this game is neither on ex-NBA star
Wang Zhizhi of the Rockets nor on World Championships point guard
Zhang Qingpeng of the Hunters, but on Fubang Holdings Ltd., a
Ningbo local enterprise which will earmark its nameplate on Bayi,
the army's team in the CBA, before the match.
According to Song Hanping, board chairman of Fubang, the
contract between Bayi and its new sponsor will last for over a
decade with the army still retaining complete personnel arrangement
control.
Bayi was established in the early 1950s as an army team, winning
seven championships since its CBA debut season in 1995. Prior to
the league's reform that year, the basketball center performed its
official functions as a governmental organ administrating the
teams, most of which were affiliated to local sports bureaus. With
the league's further development, privately owned teams rapidly
became the norm. Foreign importing of players and new transferring
rules were established and privately owned teams gradually
outplayed teams under the old system. The Rockets have missed the
league title for three years in a row since the 03-04 season.
Recalling the moment in the 2002 CBA finals when Yao Ming cut
the net in the Youngor Center for the Shanghai Sharks after beating
the Bayi Rockets to become the second league champions, Song
Hanping, then board chairman of Pairdeer Trading Co, said, "I was
deeply impressed by the game and began to contact the Bayi
team."
"I asked the players to stay one more day in Ningbo before they
went back to Beijing and treated them to dinner," Song added,
smiling.
He said that the annual cost for operating the club stands at
US$2.56 million and that they wish to make Ningbo a permanent home
to the Rockets.
The Ningbo sports bureau shares this wish. Before Fubang took
over, the local authority had to leave the business to Ningbo's
basketball association, who were reluctant to collect the operation
fund via a planned-and-market mixed management.
After Song's company expressed its will to sponsor the team, the
General Political Department of PLA did not discuss it until
October this year when Li Jinai, director of the General Political
Department, gave his approval.
Commenting on the development, Li Yuanwei, director of China's
basketball administration center said the establishment of the Bayi
Fubang Club removed obstacles in the way of the CBA's reform.
"Finally, the last worry has been removed," he said.
But Li also admitted that more work remains in the league's
professionalization process as Bayi's personnel affairs and
management right are still separately owned.
"Army men have the special identity therefore the personnel
administration right must be taken by the Bayi army's sports work
team," said former Bayi player and CBA MVP winner Liu Yudong,
explaining why Fubang has no right to interfere with contracts
between the club and its players.
As for whether Bayi could import foreign players, Song Hanping
said the directorate may empower the coach team to do it if
necessary but not as yet.
Are the army's basketballers capable of taking off their
uniforms and becoming a real professional lineup? "It's up to the
Bayi sports work team," Li Yuanwei noted.
Bayi Rockets' star center Wang Zhizhi
(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, December 22, 2006)
