The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup will be the 18th tournament of the FIBA Basketball World Cup for men's national basketball teams. The tournament will be hosted in China and it will mark a new era for the competition as described. Rescheduled from 2018 to 2019, this edition will be the first FIBA Basketball World Cup since 1967 that will not occur in the same year as the FIFA World Cup, but a year following the latter. Also, the group stage will expand from 24 to 32 teams. The top 8 teams, including Japan as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics (and the top 2 teams from each of the Americas and Europe; and the top team from each of Africa, Asia and Oceania) in this competition will qualify for the men's basketball event in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The whole bidding process started in April 2014. Bids from numerous nations were submitted. On 16 March 2015, it was confirmed that the World Cup will be staged in Asia, with China and Philippines as the final countries to be the basis for the selection of the host.[1][2] On 7 August 2015, it was announced that China won the bid against the Philippines and will host the upcoming World Cup.[3]
China as hosts automatically qualified for the tournament. The continental championships will no longer belong to the qualification system for the World Cup. Instead, two rounds of continental qualifying tournaments will be held over two years.[4]
The first round of the Americas, Asia/Oceania and Africa qualifiers will feature 16 teams each, whereas Europe will have 32 teams. Division A teams will be split in groups of four, to be held in a home-and-away round-robin. The top three teams in each groups will advance to round two, and last placed teams will play the best Division B teams to qualify for the next season's Division A.
In round two of the World Cup qualifiers, teams will be split in groups of six, totaling four groups in Europe and two in the other qualifiers. Teams will carry over the points from round one, and face another three teams again in a home-and-away round-robin. The best teams in each group will qualify for the World Cup.
Starting 2019, no wild card selection will be held, and the Olympic champions are not guaranteed a spot in the tournament.
The draw for the qualifiers was held on 7 May 2017 in Guangzhou.[5]
The tournament will be played in three stages. In the first stage, the 32 qualified teams will be sorted into eight groups of four (A-H), each team in a group will play each other once. The top two teams from each group will then advance to the second group stage. In the second group stage there will be four groups (I-L) of four made up of the teams that advanced from the first round, again playing each other once. The top two teams from groups I to L will qualify for the final knockout phase.[6]
Classification rounds will be revived after they were not held in 2014.[7] They were traditionally held in every World Championship/World Cup and were last seen in action in 2010.[8]
In total, 92 games will be played over a total of 16 days.
The official logo of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup was officially unveiled on 21 March 2017 in a ceremony held in Shanghai. The logo's concept was inspired from the Beijing Opera where the actors symbolize concepts such as wisdom, persistence, power and perfection, which are prerequisite characteristics that the participating players of national team will need to exhibit "in order to succeed". The logo design was also inspired from the Chinese Dragon Dance, a cultural tradition depicting a story of two flying dragons battling over a shining pearl which is meant to parallel the competition of national teams for the Naismith Trophy.[11]
Sponsors
Infront China will become the exclusive marketing partner for the domestic commercial rights of FIBA Basketball World Cup China 2019, according to a strategic cooperation agreement officially announced between Infront China, a Wanda Sports company, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the Organizing Committee for the competition. The FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 will be staged across eight Chinese cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Foshan and Dongguan, from 31 August to 15 September 2019.[12]
Mascot
An international mascot design competition was organized with the winning mascot chosen by fans. Yan Xu's design, a Chinese Dragon-inspired named Son of Dreams, was announced to be the winning mascot on 18 April 2018. Son of Dreams was born in China on 8 August 2015 one day after China was announced as the host according to the mascot's fictional biography. The magical horns of the mascot is described as having the ability to give the dragon "the power to see in the future, envisioning plays and moves before they actually happen". He wears a red and blue uniform with the tournament's logo and high tops by China's top player Yao Ming. The mascot was chosen over other finalists Speed Tiger who was inspired by a Siberian tiger and QiuQiu (a.k.a. Little Lightning) who was inspired by a Chinese lion. The official mascot made his first public appearance on 28 June 2018 in Shenzhen.[13]
Issues and concerns
There are concerns from national federations that they will not be able to play the qualifiers with players from top professional leagues globally (the National Basketball Association and EuroLeague), which is possible with professional leagues operating in mid-year.[14]
China
Philippines
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Tunisia
Nigeria
Greece
Germany
Czech Republic
Lithuania
Australia
France
Angola
New Zealand
South Korea
Spain
Turkey
United States
Venezuela
Argentina
Canada
Brazil
Senegal
Italy
Poland
Russia
Japan
Jordan
Iran
Serbia
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