By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The fact that the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are held in 2021 speaks itself about the current state of the Games which is clearly connected to the COVID pandemic.
However, almost 30 years after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics that became the springboard for a global basketball boom, the sport itself is much more served in the FIBA World Cup.
The case for the inclusion of top teams and the difference of the format was also made two years ago, during the FIBA World Cup 2019, the biggest event yet in FIBA’s history.
The issue is much more evident after two years. The inclusion of 3on3 basketball can be considered an innovation, but while this format of the sport is very popular among amateur players, the same can’t be said about fans and mainstream audiences.
Simply put, just 12 teams in a global basketball tournament are too small of a number. And even if you consider the Olympic qualifiers part of the Olympic tournament, the fact that this year the qualifiers coincided with the NBA playoffs, keeping many NBA players unavailable – with Giannis Antetokounmpo being the prime example – makes things even more disappointing, even if this happened because of COVID.
This year, to get the gold medal, you must win six games. That’s it, end of the tournament. And to be exact, you might be able to afford a defeat in the first round.
FIBA has asked many times in the past for an expansion of the Olympic tournament, but IOC is not willing to accommodate this request. The reason is simple: Basketball is already one of the hottest tickets of the Olympics and adding more teams and more stars to the tournament would overshadow even more the rest of the sports.
It’s not by chance that nine flagbearers in the opening ceremony were basketball players, an honor that is not given easily to athletes of team sports.
The only thing that currently holds the Olympics in higher regard compared to the FIBA World Cup is the players themselves. Most of them, especially when talking about the US, are much more willing to play in the Olympics than in the World Cup. That’s not the case in football – soccer if you want to call it this way – and the FIFA World Cup.
And that’s a perception that FIBA must change for basketball to become even bigger in every aspect.