For two weeks in August and September, 24 national teams will take part in the FIBA World Championships hosted by Turkey, a country where the sport rivals soccer for attention and mindshare among its passionate fans.
The tournament has helped reinforce basketball’s standing as a truly universal sport since 1950, but as we await the 16th edition even FIBA, basketball’s world governing body, admits it has yet to fully realise its commercial potential.
FIBA’s broadcast rights were sold by the now-defunct ISL until 2001, and only in the last eight years, with a strong in-house team, has there been a co-ordinated strategy for the sale of its broadcast and marketing rights. The result is a far healthier product and commercial proposition than ever before.
According to FIBA, the most recent cycle of World Championship, Continental Championships and Olympic competitions has seen an unprecedented growth in both the quality and awareness of international basketball.
This year, says FIBA commercial director Matthew Osmon, the World Championships will be taken live or as highlights in 180 countries - comparable to the FIFA World Cup - and will be viewed by an accumulated audience of around one billion, up on the 800 million people which FIBA says watched the 2006 edition in Japan.
“We are experiencing strong growth in TV audiences and we are seeing a more than steady growth in our income,” Osmon tells SportBusiness International. “We have done extensive research relating to awareness - and interest in our major competitions is now very strong. In some markets like Spain, the World Championships are the must-see event ahead of the Olympic Games and NBA finals.”
It’s no idle boast. Although basketball was once again one of the most-viewed and most-popular sports at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - producing an epic final where USA regained the gold medal against the current FIBA World Champions Spain - this year’s World Championships has the potential to surpass even the Olympic showcase in terms of eyeballs and drama.
“We view the World Championships and the Olympic Games as the equivalent of having a [FIFA] World Cup every two years,” says Osmon. “From a sporting point of view, FIBA is responsible for both events but, of course, the Olympics are marketed by the IOC.
“It’s fair to say that the World Championship is now the biggest event for FIBA and there’s something of a gap opening up between the EuroBasket and the World Championship. In America, Africa and Asia, in particular, it’s the World Championship above anything else.”
The extra value of the World Championship, he adds, stems from its competitive format: “The Olympic tournament is a 12-team event, compared to 24 teams at the World Championships, which may go up to 32 teams…and it’s easier to win the Olympics because there is [a mandatory selection of] minimum one team from every continent plus the host nation. This means there are fewer close games than the World Championship, where there are twice as many teams and all the best teams are there. Ten or 12 teams have a realistic chance to win a medal.”
FIBA, however, has plenty more inventory to offer than its ‘World Cup’ event - a factor which influences the rights sales process for the World Championships. “We work in four-year cycles, the last one being from 2007 through 2010,” Osmon explains. “In the odd years we have the Continental Championships, like the Euros and Asias, and in the even years, the Olympic Games and the World Championships. It’s great for our sport to have a World Champion every two years and with the biennial Continental Championships, there’s an international competition every year.”
This strong international calendar is reflected in the way the World Championship rights are packaged up. Typically, FIBA bundles rights to the two Continental Championships with the World Championships.
The last rights cycle available for broadcast partners, for example, was for 2009-2011 and as Osmon explains: “In a typical broadcast deal we secure a dedicated international broadcaster in every territory which is best for the sport in that country. In Italy, for example, it’s RAI; we don’t want to split the continental and world rights with another channel in Italy because we want people to know which is the basketball channel. The internet [via FIBATV.com] plays a fast-growing role in filling the gaps, but TV is still king.”
For a full rights focus, please see the latest issue of SportBusiness International out August 1.
