You guys already meantioned a few things.
+bigger attendance in games
+more countries included
+more countries having a chance at hosting the eurobasket
-group fixing
-lack of centralised organisation
I have nothing against such model and changed my mind regarding numerous things that bothered me with it. However that's due to the fact I don't expect Fiba to be ambitious enough to make a noticably better model out of it.
Good steps within the last few years.
1.
Expanding from 16 to 24 teams. Best thing that happened out there, 17th -24th team, if they don't proove to be very competitive as well, some of them at least have their share of moments, I loved Iceland, Netherlands, Belgium this tournament for example and I am sure this expansion will help basketball grow tremendously in those untill now opressed countries. Also it decreases the chance of some NT being caught on the wrong foot and missing eurobasket alltogether as It used to be the case with Italy for example.
2.
Selling individual tickets instead of group ones since 2013, increases the attendance as well as possibility for foreign tourists, as f.e. 10.000 French buying the "whole day tickets" means less of tickets will be available for other games that day, less foreign fans will be able to travel and eventhough some fans might stay to see another game the economical aspects of that system were deprimental to individual tickets (price, number wise, no. of foreign fans etc.)
3. This one is a big questionmark. Fiba got themselves advisors from Uefa which decided to go for a qualification system with time-windows, we're yet to see the effects of this when it's implemented. It's definately not in favour of the clubs, yet I'm neglecting the club and NBA issue at this point as not having your own NT play some meaningfull games at home during the year is deprimental for the sport. Whole bunch of issues arise from such model, however they're at least trying to adress some visible shortcomings - don't jump on me for this one, but trying to change something is what I consider positive in this regard, haven't yet made my mind about the "solution".
However, succes is also a matter of ambition. And FibaE should encourage ambition there.
1.
Hosting a 1st stage group of eurobasket is not a big deal. Organisationaly, financialy or infrastructuraly wise. By making this model a default, don't underestimate the effect of federations not being forced to take their operations to the higher level. Affording or not affording organising such event is a flattering talk most federations prefer as they don't feel capable organising the whole thing, while organising one group works with less than 1/4 of the effort needed for the whole championship. That will inevitably show through marketing (unless fully centralised by Fiba, which would again drive it towards being less efficient) and decreasing the importance of the tournament, from making it a big deal aka biggest sportive event in that country that year, from merely hosting a group stage. Co-hosting with 2 countries should be an option for any smaller country out there, I don't think building a 2 5000+ arenas (preferably a bit more than just that) is something too much to expect from any country that wishes to portray themselves as a bball country for that period.
2.
Net gains were positive for both Lithuania and Slovenia in 2011 and 2013 both with room for improvement, meaning it's not a matter of finances, but mere organisation and getting a nation-wide concensus for hosting the whole tournament. The latter inevitably shows through the tournament as whole armada of various tourist, goverment, sport, media institutions have to work together and put in some effort (!) to make it work.
3.
Knowing the host for 4 years in advance is neccesary to make all the arangements and to leave out all the possibilities of "we lacked time" kind of excuses and so on. Also Fiba must ensure that the financial structures of the tournament or potential new capacities are already closed or guaranteed up to some degree. When Slovenia got the eurobasket, Koper was supposed to build an 8000 arena, I'll leave the petty local bureaucracy details, of course they didn't build it, eurobasket being played in 4000 capacity arena instead. Those kinds of venues shouldn't be tolerated as Fiba's standards. That 8000 seater could easily be filled with more Finns, Italians and Greeks as the demand for the tickets was far greater than the capacity.
4. Attendance wise, this co-hosting did proove to be a good thing, however
letting a country to choose one participant is unsportive, especialy since by choosing 1 country you can significantly influence chances for having 1 or even 2 more in the group due to the pot system. Without that ability we might as well return to the old numbers in regard to attendance.
5. The biggest issue here is the
timeline of the tournament. Needless to say most people are expected to be back at work in september, those also hold the biggest purchase power there, what's left are exemptions, students, retired people etc. narrowing down the potential base of fans that would come to support their team abroad significantly. 15k Slovenians in Zagreb would definately be no illusion there.
Moving the start date to the last week in august, would increase attendance to the extent that I don't care if whole club system has to switch to starting the leagues one week earlier. Preparation stages are getting ridiciously prolongued anyway and won't suffer from one week less. That also eliminates the issue with the under-attended 15.00 games for both local bball fans or fans from neighbouring country. A simple MUST by my opinion, no matter the adjustments there will be needed.
6.
4 games played at the same time equals a loss of opurtunity income at some point. FibaE is worried by increased costs by prolonguing the tournament, however loosing money due to it as well. And with 4 countries co-hosting that won't likely change as the interests to keep the actual costs as low as possible being one of the driving forces, will prevail in front of potential income.
This way there is less time to create some additional content by the media and the later is of lower quality, overall broadcast time is decreased and many TVs only focus on covering their own NT, without trying to make the best ouf of the whole package they actually paid for. I'm leaving aside the effect on playing level, economical aspects are a bigger issue. Make every team play every second day and encourage broadcasters to make the best of it.
7.
Make the selection process transparent and screw the delegates, I know that won't happen but at least decrease their weight in the final decision. Corruption, returning the favours or as in some previous cases dissbelief they've got chances is turning countries away from candidating. The most ambitious candidate should get the eurobasket.
8. And the last point,
we're talking of a spiral catch here. 4 votes are always more than 1 vote, a lot of less competent, less profesional, not as ambitious federations will consider applying for an eurobasket group solely to please their countrymen and get some media attention and that can become easily misinterpreted as them doing some enormously heavy work out there.
Selection process for those 4 co-hosts is also dubious as in case we want to spread the eurobasket representation fairly, that won't come out of trying to join the biggest and most likely to be selected federations out there. Imagine that Spain and Turkey would be interested in co-hosting one of the groups for the next eurobasket, whoever joins is in and anyone else potentialy interested will realise fast enough they've got no chance and won't bother with it anymore. That significantly decreases the potential ambitions and kills the competition.
One more case. Turkey is reportedly interested in hosting the next eurobasket by themselves. They could easily be out-voted by a coalition of 4 countries, just because there are 4 of them and their neighbouring countries will prefer voting for them, regardless of the level of arenas, organisation, accomodations Turkey or that group of candidates would provide.
As I said, I have nothing against this kind of system untill some kinds of further solutions are applied, however that's not the optimal long term solution from various aspects and we could be trapped in it for eternity. The beauty of the democracy
