Should Olympic basketball be for the U24 category ?

[pohani komarac]

Fiba and Uleb already made everything bad they could in recent years to make basketball village sport, why not try to finish job

[celticheart]

How about doing what they do for football and only allow a certain number of player over a certain age to play. This would level out the playing field. Although USA probably wont be as fun to watch, but hey we still got the all star games to look forward to.

[pohani komarac]

With this rules US would be even more dominant. Outside US teams are struggling to create 12 man roster now, imagine how limited player pool would be with this rules, while USA has no problems sending 12 established NBA players U-24

[Hoopster]

With this rules US would be even more dominant. Outside US teams are struggling to create 12 man roster now, imagine how limited player pool would be with this rules, while USA has no problems sending 12 established NBA players U-24

This is correct. The Under 24 rule will benefit NBA owners it will lower the possibility of a star player going down to injury. It also serves other nefarious purposes it can be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the players in the upcoming CBA negotiations. The top players all at some point in their career want to win a gold medal. The owners know this and will use as a weapon to wring concessions from the players. Finally I think the owners also want to minimize the IOC. If the Olympics are out of the way then they could possibly get FIBA to revenue share or failing that they could start their own tournament, see the NHL world cup of hockey, where they get all the revenue. They definitely want international play just on their terms and they make the money from it.

[saalsapr]

There's a lot about American sporting culture that you're unaware of or not privy to. Unlike most of the world, we don't have a singular national sport. The NFL is the most popular, but it competes with baseball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer and individual sports for public attention and dollars. The market is crowded here, and because we have more entertainment options than most places, we tend to internalize domestic sports with a passion not given to our national teams. The Olympics, and to some extent, the World Cup are the only international events that capture our attention because they're prestigious, established events too big to ignore.

It took me awhile, but I'm actually in favor of the FIBA World Cup being the dominant tournament over the Olympics, but we're fighting an uphill battle. The Olympics is an older competition, arguably more prestigious, and it pits the best of the best against each other. Although basketball has made leaps and bounds in both participation and popularity over the last 20 years, developmentally it's no where near football when you compare the two sports on a global level. The best teams in African and Asia would struggle to finish in EuroBasket's top 16, and that speaks volumes to how far the sport has to go before we start seeing real parity. As of now, the World Cup is a watered-down version of the Olympic tournament, and that's not going to change anytime soon.

I agree with this, but come on, football is the king sport in the US, the TV ratings alone prove it. College football, despite being amateur gets so much attention too. The second spot is a fight between Baseball and Basketball with baseball still holding a slight edge, considering the average attendance comparison between the MLB and NBA. Basketball is the one sport where there such a talent gap between the world's best and the 50th ranked team (right now Qatar) that its hard to imagine Fiba gaining more popularity, unless they do something about it personally, probably by changing rules.