Basketball is rising to become China's No 1 sport following the huge success of the Chinese Amateur Basketball Open (CBO) competition this year.

The Chinese Basketball Administrative Centre (CBAC) is confident the amateur event will become a platform to develop more fans and even pro players.

The CBAC believes basketball will become the nation's top sport, surpassing football and even table tennis in the near future.

"CBO is the biggest tournament in China for amateurs. We launched it late last year and it has been going well beyond the expectation," said Li Yuanwei, director of CBAC, the sport's governing body

"There were far more fans and players involved in the tournament than we have expected. And the national finals in Beijing wrapped up a successful year."

The finals, which were concluded last week, were divided into two groups according to the age.

The Zhuhai Duty Free Group team was the champion in the Open Group (from 18-60) after beating Harbin Institute of Technology 54-46 while the Yantai Sanhe Group team won the Jiyi Group (above 40) after edging Helongjiang Yunyan Group team 68-57.

"We are glad to see that there are so many passionate players taking part in the tournament. Whether old or young, they showed the determination and discipline on the court," said Li.

"It is the same to every sport. Public participation is the grassroots for a sport's development.

"On one hand, we have to prepare the national team for the 2008 Olympic Games. On the other hand, we should never neglect the significance of the amateur development."

Li believed more will join in the next year. "The inaugural CBO drew attention from fans, players and also companies," he said.

"It is just a beginning. We are determined to stick to the efforts and I am confident CBO will help lift nation's basketball to a new level in the near future."

Further reform

CBO also has pushed the officials to attempt deeper reforms on the sport. "We have learned lots of lessons and also benefited a lot from the reform of the CBO," said Xu Minfeng, director of Development Department of CBAC.

According to Xu, national or international competitions were usually organized by CBAC before while local basketball associations were just asked to offer a few assistances.

Now CBO gives a good chance to push the local associations to help develop the sport.

Xu said CBO gave local associations rights to organize the competition and also to search for sponsors. "We adopted a new reform in CBO this year. We are dependent on local associations to organize whatever kind of amateur basketball event as a stage of CBO," said Xu. "The associations know the local situations better than us. And they have better ideas as how to host a popular event."

The goal, said Xu, is to help every local association become an entity in the next years. It will be operated independently.

"The goal to make such change is to give local association freedom and right to develop the grassroots basketball."

The increasing popularity also tempts sponsors to join in and CBAC has hired a promotion company to develop the sport's marketing. "It is a new attempt to make CBO commercialized. So far the marketing of the sport is making rapid progress," Xu said.

"In terms of the number of teams and players, CBO is the biggest one. But compared to CBA (nation's premier pro league) and CUBA (the top league for university students), CBO is not as influential as them. But CBO has the potential to become the most popular basketball event in the future."

The competition, with games played between teams in different cities before moving onto provincial competitions, is available to any Chinese citizen over the age of 18.

Non-Chinese basketball fans, living in China for more than a year, will also be able to join the fun.

(China Daily October 11, 2006)