The 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan will have a record number of broadcasting countries. The current agreements will mean that the world’s premier basketball event will be seen in over 150 countries giving extensive coverage in all of the five FIBA Zones.
All 80 games of the 2006 FIBA World Championship will be available for broadcast and in addition FIBA TV will be offering an English language feed for the Final round of games.
FIBA TV have also established a FIBA World Championship Internet Broadband site where viewers throughout the world can access live and delayed coverage of all 80 games. This broadband offering has been developed with online broadcaster MediaZone and will be accessible on http://www.fiba.com/ and http://www.fiba2006.com/ and wherever possible in conjunction with FIBA’s Broadcast Partners in order to maximise the distribution. Pre-registration for the Internet broadcast is available starting Thursday, August 10.
Both of the FIBA World Championships, the men’s in Japan and the women’s which take place ten days later in Sao Paulo, Brazil are being regularly promoted in the FIBA World Basketball television programme. This weekly programme is now seen in over 50 countries and this distribution will increase to 100 countries in the lead up to the World Championships. Once again further details will be available on FIBA.com.
For more information please contact FIBA television at mailto:mtv@fiba.com.
FIBA World Championship – One World – One Title: Event Outline
The FIBA World Championship is played every 4 years and determines the best basketball nation of the world. The first World Championship was played in 1950 in Argentina.
The 2006 edition will be played in Japan from 19th August until 3rd September in five different cities. FIBA has increased the number of teams playing at the FIBA World Championship from 16 to 24 teams because of the increased level of basketball around the world and the increasing number of competitive teams at the highest level.
Group A Sendai Argentina,Venezuela, France, Serbia & Montenegro, Lebanon, Nigeria
Group B Hiroshima Spain, Panama, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Angola
Group C Hamamatsu Lithuania, Brazil, Greece, Turkey, Australia, Qatar
Group D Sapporo USA, Puerto Rico, Slovenia, Italy, P.R. of China, Senegal
The teams will play against each other in the preliminary phase in four groups of 6 teams. The 4 top teams from each group will then qualify directly for the Eighth-Finals, Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals and Finals. All the games from the Eighth-Finals to the Finals will be played on a one-game elimination basis in the city of Saitama.
The 2006 FIBA World Champion will qualify automatically for the 2008 Olympic Basketball Tournament for Men in Beijing.