As this year's FIBA showpiece event gets underway in Spain, some members of the basketball world will already be looking forward to the next edition in 2019, which moves it away from the same four-year-cycle as that of the FIFA World Cup.

Since 1970, when the World Championships were held outside of South America for the very first time, both basketball's and football's flagship events have been held on the same year.

This, according to FIBA secretary general and International Olympic Committee member Patrick Baumann, is "absolutely not acceptable for basketball players" due to basketball's World Cup being considered the "small one compared to the big one".

"We are bigger, we are taller, we want to be better, so we decided we have to go up, therefore we decided to play in 2019," he added.

The decision to move the date of the World Cup was made by the FIBA Executive Board during its Extraordinary Congress in Istanbul, Turkey in March.

The Board hopes the rebrand of the former World Championships to the newly named FIBA World Cup will also provide a major boost to the commercial success of the tournament and help it reach the heights of its footballing equivalent.

The FIFA World Cup is the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding that of even the Olympic Games.

Some 715.1 million people tuned in to watch the final of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, around a ninth of the planet ©Getty Images



The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany was estimated to be 26.29 billion with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the final match, a ninth of the entire population of the planet.

Although reaching figures of this proportion will be no overnight job, the rebranding of the FIBA World Cup is helping to make inroads into this extraordinary mark as Baumann explained to insidethegames during the recently concluded Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing.

"We want to send a signal that this is going to reach new levels, new heights and new importance," Baumann said.

"We have to say broadcasters like it and the partners are very happy."

No decision has been made for the host of the 2019 FIBA World Cup, although 12 countries have stated their interest to basketball's world governing body.

That figure is likely to "go down" according to Baumann, due to cities committing to the FIBA World Tour, however, submissions will be put forward by the end of the year.

Read the full insidethegames interview with Patrick Baumann here.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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