You seem to either be willingly ignoring the majority of this thread (and the attitude of the average American or in hockey terms, Canadians) or totally not seeing what's being said. Very few (if any) American basketball fans care more about the World Championships than the Olympic basketball gold medal. The players don't care, the owners don't care, the fans don't care. The rosters that get sent say it, the media coverage says it, and the television ratings say it. You started this thread complaining about the lack of respect for these Championships, especially the US media. We're here giving you reasons why, yet you keep saying 'but the rest of the world...'. SO FREAKING WHAT! This is not about the rest of the world. You say "but the US isn't the reigning World Champs!" We're telling you that very few people in the US (if any, outside US Basketball or whatever our governing body is called) even KNOWS that. I thought you were in the US, but I know (I think I know) that you are Brazilian. You've got to realize (along with MANY other non-US posters here on bigsoccer) that the US posters here are NOT representative of the average US sports fan. I LIKE basketball. I don't like the NBA, though. I also know that if the US sent our best players, and they had time to prepare, there is no other nation that, at present, can come close to us. That is a very common belief among American basketball fans, and it's true. These international competitions won't ever be all that popular in the US until there are teams that can compete with our best. Will that happen anytime soon? Maybe, but I doubt it. If the US loses one of these without our best, with that matter? Nope, there'll just be a concerted effort to get a better caliber of players on the next roster. If we sent our best right now, very few in the US would care, either, as it would be lopsided. These championships aren't interesting to Americans for the simple reason that we WOULD win it with our best, and we SHOULD win it with the guys we sent this time. Until our BEST are in danger of losing, it won't mean anything to the US basketball fan. And we won't send our best again until our 'B or C' teams lose on a semi-regular basis. And not until we lose in the Olympics, either. If we lose these games, no one will care, especially if we win the next Olympics, since we'll send a better team. If we lose these AND the next Olympics, the next World Championships might see better players (actually, probably will). It basically boils down to this: we don't care about it now because our best would win, and the fact that we don't send our best makes it even LESS meaningful. Until we MUST send our best to have a chance at winning, international basketball will be just a blip on the US basketball radar. I hope that time comes soon, but I doubt it will be here in the next 10 years. I'd expect the US to win the soccer world cup before we lose the basketball world championships with our BEST players, and I don't think the US is going to win one of the next 3 world cups.
I also know a lot of Indian immigrants here in the US who are mad -- and I mean real passionately mad -- about cricket. You keep throwing the 212 number around. That does not mean anything. For instance, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) also has somewhere between 150 and 180 members, does this mean that the game of chess is wildly popular all over the world??? FIBA may have more members than does FIFA, but surely you will not argue that basketball is more popular than soccer!?! So having lots of national organizations as members of a sport's global federation is not conclusive evidence of a sport's or a pastime's degree of global popularity. Refer to the chess (FIDE) example that I cited above.
The rest of the world can't compete with us, in basketball. We aren't trying to comete with the rest of the world, yet. You can compare the situation with the early days of soccer and the FA didn't send their best squad to the World Cup. Corrcect?
That's probably a bad example, as chess's popularity is pretty spread out. There are probably legitimately competitive players (masters, grand masters) in most of those countries. But I agree with the general point. It doesn't cost much to be a member of FIBA. I judge the wide-spreadedness of basketball's popularity by the number of countries with a half decent domestic league. That number is surprisingly large (several dozen), with solid leagues on every inhabited continent. Not close to soccer, but has a case against everyone else.
Thursday, August 29 At Conseco Fieldhouse Group A: Yugoslavia 113, Angola 63 Group A: Spain 85, Canada 54 Group D: New Zealand 90, Russia 81 Group D: Argentina 107, Venezuela 72 50, 31, 9, 35. 1 close game At RCA Dome Group B: Brazil 102, Lebanon 73 Group B: Puerto Rico 78, Turkey 75 Group C: Germany 88, China 76 Group C: United States 110, Algeria 60 Friday, Aug. 30 29, 3, 12, 50. 2 close games At Conseco Fieldhouse Group B: Puerto Rico 99, Lebanon 77 Group B: Brazil 88, Turkey 86 Group D: Russia vs. Argentina, 5:30 p.m. ET Group C: Algeria vs. China, app. 8 p.m. ET 22, 2. I can't believe ESPN doesn't have all the results up, but I believe Argentina won. 1 close game, 1 semi-close game. Group B looks tight. At RCA Dome Group A: Angola 84, Canada 74 Group A: Spain 71, Yugoslavia 69 Group D: Venezuela vs. New Zealand, 4:30 p.m. ET Group C: United States 104, Germany 87 10, 2, 17, ? They're getting better. If anything, this scores indicate that 16 teams is just a bit much, at least at this point. A similar situation could be how the fans of Manchester United react to Worthington Cup matches. This season it looks like they'll not dominate the Premier League, but obviously be near the top. They'll also be in Champs League action, and likely make the 2nd group phase. And then there's the FA Cup. But do any of them care if they win the Worthington Cup, or even advance all that far? Probably not near as many as the lower division teams who see that as their chance to win something. Sure, ManU could and theoretically SHOULD get much further than they do (as should Liverpool, Arsenal and a few others), but it's not nicknamed the Worthless Cup without good reason. That reason is the big teams don't really care much if they win it, generally. There are always exceptions, but when ManU is still fighting for the League, Champs League and FA Cup, and they field backups in the Worthington Cup, how many ManU fans really care when they lose? Not a perfect comparision, but close.
And FIBA has probably deliberately gone around signing up such national organizations just to one-up FIFA.
The implied point there is that if it's just us being out of tune, we should probably expect that in the long run, it would be us conforming to the majority's view, rather than the other way around, unless some other factor were at play. (Especially since there are other incentives to predict FIBA's version should win, such as revenues accruing to FIBA rather than the IOC, meaning that the players can be paid more). And you go on to say exactly what it is: lack of competition. We're so much better than everyone else that we feel no particular need to prove it. So the 'Olympics > Worlds' argument is a red herring.
Maybe, maybe not. Even as long ago as 1950, most of FIBA's member associations were outside North America. I tend to think it's mostly an issue of FIBA's membership being less onerous in terms of regulations than FIFA's. Notice FIBA isn't stupid enough to try to make the NBA play by its internationally-approved rules.
Popularity can be measured both by the number of countries where it is played AND by the number of fans/participants who partake of that sport in some way or the other. Only invoking the number of countries that play a sport is not a comprehensive method of estimating a sport's popularity.
Bottom line. If someone beats the United States "B" team this year, we will be pissed and send Shaq, Lebron, Duncan, and Kobe in 2006. Until someone beats our "A" team, this little tournament means jack ****!
The reason you now have over 200 countries is because of international political developments in the last 10 years or so. And it is quite possible that FIBA has gone around signing up members willy-nilly so as to trumpet the sport's global appeal (taking a cue, of course, from the NBA).
Let me condense the dialogue. A: Why aren't these championships important? B: Because (to whatever extent they care about int'l basketball at all), Americans care more about the Olympics. A: But why's that? The rest of the world treats the worlds as more important. The answers tot hat question have been a little incoherent, ranging from disputing the contention, to just repeating the original statement, to asserting it somehow doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks, if we think the Olympics are better, well, then, they are. But the implied question is, "if we didn't know the worlds (because we almost certainly didn't) were a bigger deal to them, why not?" The answer is, because we made the decision not to watch int'l basketball long before we even knew there was such a distinction (if we even know it now) for some other reason (which is lack of competition).
If they beat our 'B' team, it means they've come a real long way in a real short time, because our 'B' team has some damn fine players. (I'm thinking I see somewhere between two and four eventual hall of famers on this team).
Two to Four??? Please bring whatever you are smoking down to the bayou, because I will show you a great time down here. Baron is great, but Reggie hasn't won jack ****! Who else are you thinking of? There are probably more hall of famers on the international side than the US side. If Payton were playing I could give you two.
you are forgetting a couple of little things... if you collate the opinions expressed here, you'll find most people agree that basketball is growing as a sport, especially considering from what i gather in a quick google search that the nba is 53 years old, making it younger than fiba but a year older than the WC. anyway the point is that the US undoubtedly has enjoyed a superiority, but that as the game becomes more popular around the world there are more quality leagues producing more quality players- it happened to futbol, and it is happening to basketball. I think 25% of the draft this year was foreign, not to mention the numerous players who have been drafted in the past decade. As more countries have more NBA players, there will be more exciting international competition. If you enjoy a sport, you should enjoy watching regardless of what the medium; i watch futbol in any shape or form, but what makes a world cup attractive is the opportunity to see a country's best playing for national pride against another country's best. All countries have problems getting their best teams, the lakers manager telling kobe not to play is no different than the one in milwaulkee telling pau gasol not too- but clearly non-americans take this tournament far more seriously. I cant help but find it funny that somebody would suggest the IOC is a good governing body, with all of the political scandals they have, just as it is laughable to criticize the refereeing at this tournament without making reference to the NBA's questionable referees. FIBA's credibility depends on its ability to attract A-quality teams, and I cant see why a Basketball fan would not want another high-level competition. The problem, just as in soccer, is that there is so much money and interests exerting power over the way the game is played and this invariably goes against the interests of the fan who wants to see more "spectacular" games And it is true that US media coverage is crap. Check out the ESPN listings for the third world latin america , and then for the good old USA. 3 Espn's for the third world, 5 for the First. And yet only one of those 5 espn signals is covering the games, and ONLY THE ONES THE US PLAYS. Whereas one of the three third world espn signals is covering EVERY SINGLE GAME. Because people there would be interested in seeing yugoslavia vs spain or russia vs new zealand. Here in the states there is just too much other crap that americans are more interested in. The same with the olympics: very little is shown of other countries performances, it constantly jumps from an american in one competition to another. I read an article today interviewing the current dream team competing in indiana, after their sold-out game against china in portland- all of the US players were interviewed about the chinese star, BUT THE CHINESE STAR WASNT ASKED A SINGLE THING. I can bet you that newspapers in chile, which isnt even competing in any of these competitions, have quotes from the protagonists from all countries, not just the ones in south america or some crap like that. Its ridiculous. tloved hat bit about England not having gone to the WC before because they were too good... as if british dominance in soccer was a good "example case" for US basketball to follow!! haha
Does the rest of the world view the World Championships as more important? I really don't know. BTW, thanks for that. I wasn't quite sure what you were getting at ;-) I think part of the reason we, as a country, have ignored international basketball was the fact that, barring the disputed game vs the Soviets in the early 70's, our college players were better than anything any other nation could put together, until very recently. In the back of the collective mind was the thought "if our college kids can beat them, our pros would CRUSH them". Once the college kids were having a tough go (and this was also the time that a lot of juniors and seniors started going pro early, making our college kids even that much weaker), we started sending pros. As the rest of the world is getting better, things like the World Championships are starting to draw a bit of attention in the US. But the fact remains that the Olympics have a basketball tradition going WAY back, while the Worlds don't. That's at the heart of why no one really cares that much. But as the rest of the world gets even closer, the Worlds WILL gain popularity in the US. It just really needs for us to HAVE TO send our best, and be reasonably close, for it to draw some major interest here. The competition just isn't there yet.
I doubt it. We've only won two of these tournaments since the 1950's. The rest of the world has been beating us in it for quite some time now. The bottom line is we don't care about this tournament.
The United States will start to care about the World Championships, when we don't think we can win it with our "A" team.
Re: Re: Re: you are forgetting I looked at that a little funny when I read it the first time too, but I think he meant World Championships with WC, not World Cup.
Re: Re: Re: you are forgetting from http://www.bigten.org/history/bko/bkc/intro.cfm "The Big Ten is celebrating its 98th season of Big Ten basketball in 2000-01." So I don't understand what the relevance of when either the NBA or the World Cup, or FIFA, or FIBA started has to do with anything. There was basketball before the NBA and FIBA. There was soccer before the World Cup and FIFA.
But I also know a lot of Indian immigrant here n the US who don't care about cricket, so what's your point? You keep throwing the Indian/Pakistan population around, as if it means anything. Afterall, if you can use a population argument, just the Chinese population would crush your argument. Probably, but the fact is Chinese has a bigger population than India. Easy, because 212 vs 204 is not that big an advantage, but 212 vs cricket is a sure win. If that's not conclusive evidence, what make your visit to India and the Indian immigrants you know in the U.S. remotely resemble any "evidence"? See how you conveniently dodge the population argument when I bring up China?