FIBA to host 1st women's basketball conference

OSTRAVA, Czech Republic (AP) - Bob Elphinston is proud of what he's accomplished in his four years as FIBA president.

Under his leadership, television coverage has expanded to 175 countries, the quality of play has improved and 3-on-3 basketball debuted at the Youth Olympics.

Elphinston also helped organize the first women's basketball summit at the world championship. The conference will begin Saturday in Karlovy Vary. It will bring together coaches, administrators, players and officials of federations from around the world.

“We've realized and talked about the fact we have a number of challenges in the women's game to overcome and now we have a chance to do something about them,” the outgoing head of international basketball recently told The Associated Press. “The standard isn't there in the depth of the teams. Like most women's sports, it's difficult to get media exposure, difficult to get television time. Yet we regard the product is pretty good itself.”

The biggest issue to be addressed at the summit is the timing of the women's world championship. The worlds are held every four years and start in September, just after the end of the WNBA season. Star players Sue Bird of the United States and Lauren Jackson of Australia competed in the WNBA finals for the Seattle Storm and arrived just days before the tournament in the Czech Republic.

The undefeated Americans (6-0) take on South Korea in the quarterfinals on Friday.

“The calendar is always a challenge in women's basketball,” Elphinston said. “We virtually are clashing with the WNBA, which creates problems for our players. Our top two teams here, the U.S. and Australia, basically only had two days together with their top players.”

One option is to switch the tournament to a different month. However, the calendar is already crowded with the Winter Olympics, men's World Cup and men's basketball world championship. The difficulty is getting the various countries to agree on a date.

“The Americans would prefer a world championship in January,” Elphinston said. “The Europeans would prefer a world championship in June. Australia and the Asia group think September works for them. So far, we haven't found a common time in the year.”

The other idea is to move it to a different year. While that would allow more flexibility on the calendar, it would move closer to the Summer Olympics.

Keeping it the same year as the men's worlds has its drawbacks, he said.

“Having it back-to-back with the men's championship takes something away from the women's championship,” Elphinston said. “It's very much second fiddle all the time.”

The conference also will include representatives of professional women's tennis, golf and soccer.

“We want to draw from outside experiences,” Elphinston said. “We have a guy coming from the WTA, they've done a good job of marketing and getting corporate support. We're pleased about that. We've also got a person from FIFA. Women's soccer is playing their World Cup in a different year than the men.”

Elphinston's tenure as president ended at the men's world championship a few weeks ago, when Yvan Mainini of France took over. Elphinston will oversee the building of a new international basketball headquarters in Geneva.