Oh no: Spain is getting serious!!!

January 22, 2008

Despite all the organizational problems that the Spanish federation has faced this summer with the U18 European Championship and the Eurobasket, the FEB is becoming serious in what some fans may have considered as a joke or a threat. Spain wants to organize the Basketball World Championship in 2014.

Today, FIBA officially announced that Spain is the first candidate to have filed their demand to organize the 2014 edition of the World Basketball Championships.

FIBA is happy to announce that the Spanish Basketball Federation (FEB) has officially confirmed its interest in bidding for the organization of the 17th edition of the World Championship for Men, thus becoming the first candidate interested in hosting FIBA’s premier championship in 2014. The Letter of Intent from the Spanish Basketball Federation reached the FIBA Secretariat on 16th January.

Every basketball fan that has tried to get tickets for the Eurobasket 2007 knows what this means. Who does not remember the fantastic Internet ticket selling? Without any announcement in English, the website started to sell tickets at an unknown hour. At least, for those who had the luck to reach the website. 50€ and more delivery fees and sold out arenas after 120 minutes.

But the frustration went even further when you saw than half empty arenas, even in the Final phase as the Spaniards preferred to go only see their own team but having bought all the ticket packages, the “normal” fan was practically thrown out of the possibility to watch Eurobasket 2007 live in Spain.

I hope the FEB has learned out of the committed errors, and I guess some readers will post some more “nice stories” in the comments, but according to their self-satisfied comments after the tournament, it does not look like the organization will be better in 6 years. And of course, it is not yet decided if the tournament will take place in Spain.

But first of all, we will go to Turkey in 2010 who has won the election process against France in a battle that has finished in total frustration about their own incapacity of doing effective lobbying for the French federation.

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This post was published on January 22, 2008
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Comments: 6
  1. pater
    17 years ago

    -But the frustration went even further when you saw than half empty arenas, even in the Final phase as the Spaniards preferred to go only see their own team- Dude, I just can remember the FIBA championship at Indianapolis… and you are talking of half empty arenas… in Spain we call that hipocrita. I’m sure that if we get to organize the championship it will be great here!

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  2. 17 years ago

    Pater, thanks for your comments. Sure the organization was even worse back in the days in Indianapolis. But I don’t know how in the world it makes us a bunch of hypocrites. A lot of journalists who made the trip to Spain for the Eurobasket were very disappointed in the Spanish organization committee. We’re just stressing undeniable facts. PS : We’re not American nor were we members of the Indianapolis organization committee if that was what you were hinting.

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  3. migala
    17 years ago

    Well, I was one of the Spaniards who actually attended every game in Madrid, and not only the ones involving Spain. Despite all the flaws (and there were a good number of them, including the infamous internet ticket sale) I recall many games having a pretty decent attendance.

    I particulary enjoyed the games at the Telefonica Arena, way better than the ones at Palacio de los Deportes. Actually the second “phase” (before the quarterfinals) was quite interesting in terms of the crowd excitement, attendance, etc…

    Anybody has stats of other World Championships or Eurobaskets with attendance of games where the local (or National) team is NOT playing?

    Just my 2 cents.

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  4. 17 years ago

    I was actually not talking about the attendance in general. I was talking about the frustration the fans had because of a sold out final phase where lots of seats were in fact still empty.

    In 2005, the Belgrade Arena was very well filled even for the games without Serbia. In fact, Serbia was already eliminated at that stage.

    About Indianapolis or Japan, I have no idea as i did not try to get tickets.

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  5. migala
    17 years ago

    party empty or… taken by useless VIPs with no interest in basketball whatsoever. They made me very very mad except for Rafael Nadal, who really likes hoops. I hope we can organize something better if there is a chance in the near future…

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  6. Luis
    17 years ago

    You can’t expect much out of the Spanish Federation. But it’s a strong federation and I can almost guarantee you that they will get that competition, even if it means to pay extra money to FIBA or other countries, like they did to organize the 2007 Eurobasket.

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