What's the goal?

As a new governing board takes over for the FECOBA (Costa Rican Basketball Federation), my thoughts turn over to what their objectives are for this upcoming period.

What is the objective and how do you measure progress towards those objectives? Is it to qualify for the Olympics or FIBA Worlds? Is it to be champion of Central America? Is it to have a strong professional league? Personally, I think all of these are misguided objectives. The Federation can squander an incredible amount of resources pursuing those goals, and never improving on our current position. Our qualifying region is too strong to think that the current way we do things will find a way to qualify for anything more than the Centrobasket. The results of Costa Rican teams in Centrobasket are not very encouraging once we have to face Caribbean teams.

So what should the objective be? Participation. How many people play basketball in Costa Rica in a registered league? I will go out on a limb and say that the Federation has no idea. It might have a basic idea of how many people participate in its current tourneys, but that doesn't encompass the basketball-playing universe in Costa Rica. The first obvious step is calculate how many players you have currently.  For the sake of argument, let's say that number is 4,000. Put a goal that by 2020 you want to double that number to 8,000.  Once you reach that goal, double it again in five years.  Many people feel that basketball has been slipping in popularity...putting hard numbers is vital to understand this phenomenon. We need a visible, tangible goal to track participation.

The first step is getting all leagues under the Federation umbrella. Don't make it complicated, don't make it expensive. There are too many rules designed to omit people from basketball in Costa Rica. (Exhibit A...coaching licenses).  The goal is inclusivity. If theres a basketball league anywhere, let's get it under the federation umbrella. Give every player a Federation carnet, that way we can generate a database of basketball players in Costa Rica, that way we can track young players and keep adult players engaged. Make the carnet have some value (negotiate with store that the carnet gives you a discount at Extremos, GNC, gyms, etc). The important thing is that it has to be easy and fast to get a player carnet and provide an incentive so players use it.

Getting existing leagues under the Federation umbrella won't be enough. The Federation should be in the business of helping organise leagues. How about some regional leagues (Limon, San Carlos, Perez Zeledon, Guanacaste, etc)? How about creating some school leagues, similar to what the private bilingual schools have done? How about bringing the very popular maxi-baloncesto into the fold? How about blowing out the professional leagues? How about helping out large companies and enterprises organise their intra-company competitions? What does help mean? Put their results on the federation web page. Put the finals of some of these leagues in the large gyms. How cool would it be to have the finals of the judges Laborales in the National Gym?  Players of all skill levels want to play games...let 'em play. 

Increased participation has all sorts of collateral benefits. First, it reverses the aforementioned trend of basketball sliding towards obscurity behind soccer and other sports. Second, it makes it a more attractive product for sponsors and media (and if the media doesn't cover it, go direct). Third, more players means more resources, more facilities, more refs, more coaches. Third, a larger player pool eventually helps out in national teams, providing more players to choose from. Increased competition is good for the system as a whole.  Finally, and personally the most important reason in my book, as a nation, Costa Rica has a huge challenge in reversing sedentary lifestyles; its vital to promote an active lifestyle. Basketball is an ideal vessel for that mission. We need to get people off their ass.