With the Olympics around the corner, global basketball association FIBA is harvesting the growth of the sport around the world, not only seeing record attendance and play in multiple continents, but also locking in new deals in recent weeks that include China’s Tencent and the IOC’s upcoming Olympic Channel. Cynopsis Sports spoke with Patrick Baumann, Secretary General of FIBA, about the sport’s surge around the world, his recent media deals and the challenges that still face the organization.
Baumann on the rise of basketball: We are extremely happy with how basketball is developing has been developing in the last decade. I think we are a truly global sport, which truly is rivaling with our good friends in soccer in many parts of the world. That’s something that the entire basketball family can be very proud of. Things starting accelerating after Barcelona and the Dream Team and I think we have benefitted from that. There are now 100 international players in the NBA and we are seeing record attendance in France and other countries, those are highlights for us. Whether you are in Africa, South America, Asia or Europe, we have a sport which is clearly dominating the scene and let’s face it; basketball is very exciting because every minute you have a basket, unlike other sports where you may go an hour and a half without a score.
On three-on-three play: Three-on-three play is also growing very quickly around the world since we established a number of rules and created a path from the streets to a world championship. We have close to 30 million views on the YouTube Channel. We can also be happy that we have been able to move three-on-three into communities that may not have been very strong with five-on-five, and they are now able to create some elite team that will hopefully play in Tokyo in 2020.
On challenges: Challenges are always present, especially when you are growing very fast because the structure can’t always follow as quickly as you would like. We are organized differently from the NBA, as we are a global, non-profit organization, that starts first with our communities. When you get up to our level of the organization, there are so many countries, it looks like a United Nations Security Council, with so many backgrounds and histories. So it is not always easy to bring ideas from the top down, when the local structures may not be able to follow at the speed that we are going right now. We also have challenges, because of the differences among us, in trying to grow the competitiveness in different countries, but the countries that are investing in the sport are starting to now see some success.
On new deals: With the Olympic Channel, we will be focusing very much with the exposure and development of three-on-three. The Olympic Channel will be an extraordinary platform, it will be showcasing a young, vibrant, urban sport and that’s exactly the population that the channel will be targeting. As it relates to the other deals, we are fortunate that there are so many ways that the media can bring games to fans. For example, our recent deal with Tencent in China allows us to tap into an incredible number of fans in the market that are crazy for the game. We have a deal with Perform, and they are terrific, and we will have more deals to announce as we start qualifying for the World Cup in 2019.
