Sunday, April 06, 2003

NSC tries to reshape A-League season

Watching local basketball dying little by little, NSC(National Sports Council) decides to get involve and tries to revive A-League basketball. With the help from the NSC, a 7-man committee is formed with the focus on re-shape the A-League season.

The committee is headed by legislator and former NT All-Star Cheng Chih-lung. Among the committee members are Ju Sho-cheng(NSC Vice President), Yu Wen-wei(CTBA Vice President), Wang Jen-shen(CTBA Deputy Secretary General), Chein Yi-fei(Yulon head coach), Yen Jia-hwa(Delegate of Jutai Tech) and marketing advisor Wang Wei-chung.

In the primitive plan, the committee will try to cut the Division I teams down to six in order to increase the competition balance. Players from Military Team will be assigned to each of these six teams thru draft. Ideally, it want to have a three-month season which allows one or two imports to play, and plays 1/3 of its schedule outside of Taipei area, in order to increase the fan base and at the same time limits team traveling to the minimum.

Also, the committee is talking about limiting college and high school players of the A-League teams. It wants to make A-League a pure semi-pro league without student-players in the future.

In short, the new season format will look no much different than the current one, but it will focus more on marketing and increasing fan interest, seeking more corporate sponsorship. But before the committee laying out the complete blueprint, all we can do is still just wait. You can talk the talk but also have to walk the walk. Everyone is looking forward to a new-and-improved A-League.