From: ichpc@Msu.oscs.montana.edu (Pedro de Oleiros)
Subject: Re: TripleCast Update
Reply-To: ichpc@Msu.oscs.montana.edu (Pedro de Oleiros)
Organization: Montana State University
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 19:56:46 GMT

In article <BrsxA0.IDH@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, gletty@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Bruce Gletty) writes:
>nhmas@gauss.med.harvard.edu (Mark Shneyder 432-4219) writes:
>
>>Equality?????
>>When you hear Mr.Jordan boast that the Olympics will be a vacation,you
>>know any hint of real competition is a myth. Sure,those who can stomach
>>one rout ater another will see basketball gold return to the USA. But it
>>didn't have to come this way. There was some exciting about seeing the
>>best of American collegians pursuing their dream. So they didn't always
>>get it. So what? Did we have to become the world's commercial bullies to
>>win the gold?
>
>Actually the USA was one of a very small number of countries (2 or 3) to
>vote AGAINST allowing the NBA players into the olympics. The rest of the
      ^^^^^^^
	The reason why the USA voted against allowing NBA players to play in
the Olympic games was, once again, a purely economic one. Let's see how it
worked.

	By those days, the interest of the USA at FIBA was represented by an
organization called ABAUSA. Only a handful of people was working there,
(actually it was something like 12 people). But this organization was making a
multimillion dollars profit. Why?? Well, first of all, to be able to play in
Europe, every north-american, (USA), basketball player needed to fill the
proper paperwork. This paperwork was handled by ABAUSA, who, in exchange for
the services rendered, got a big profit in the form of a transfer fee. But that
wasn't all. A few years back, only the players in the NBA where consider
professionals, (even those who never played a game in the NBA, but did report
to training camp, were considered pross). To be able to play in FIBA
competitions, they had to pay a "clearing fee", and that ammounted to big
bucks, believe me.

	As an aside, ABAUSA handled the USA teams for the Olympics, Pan-Am
games, World Cups, (and any other tournament like the Goodwill games). So they
did have the vote about the sending of the pross to the Olympic games. But when
they voted "no", it wasn't because the north-american people believe in the
dream of letting the amateur players go to the Olympics. It was because, if
they let the NBAers play, that would mean the end of the distinction between
pross and non-pross, and therefore, all there business would go, (in fact, it
did go), down the drains.

	So, please, spare us this "the americans didn't want it". We can see
that the north-americans truly want it, as you can see from the response of the
fans to the dream team games; from the arrogant talk of the nba stars in the
team; and from the shameful commercials that we have to put up with, like the
converse one featuring larry johnson, about the bad russians.

>world WANTS the NBA in the olympics. Originally our college players did
>to the world what the NBA will do this year. The rest of the world got     
>better. Now they want to play against the BEST so they can see what they
>need to do to get better. You can't improve if you don't play against 
>good opponents.

	Regards

	Pedro                  |   Non des a esquencemento
			       |   Da inxuria o rudo encono,
			       |   Desperta do teu sono,
			       |   Fogar de Breogan.

	ichpcpm@earth.oscs.montana.edu
	ichpcpm@trex.oscs.montana.edu