Blaze Report: Blindfolded Map Pointing
Ok, not so much. When I made the list of international cities I had some strong reasons for the selections I made. As I’ve stated before I have a very strong opinion in favor of Reykjavik, Iceland. Reykjavik is a very “green” city, and they are very focused on geothermal energy. Iceland is a tourist secret, but the cat is coming out of the bag. The country has less than 400,000 people, but they support an entire winter basketball team. I’m sure I will focus on why Iceland will be great in future posts, but I’d like to give OMT members (and future members) some thoughts on other cities.
I picked cities for a specific reason. Bangkok, Thailand is one location that has caught my interest. The country has a national and several junior league teams, but they do not have a basketball league. The sport overall is not very well developed in the country. I see this as a potiental opportunity for OMT to make a difference. Thailand has a population of 63 million people and a GDP of $520 billion. I have also been researching the country to find suitable arenas. Thailand is filled with indoor arenas for other sports like boxing.
The above picture (for example) shows a national team game in Bangkok (10 million in population). I noticed several indoor stadiums that seat over 12,000 people. Rajamangala Indoor Stadium is the largest in Bangkok (pictured below).
In Thailand betting is done right at the stadium. This is part of the Thai culture, and if OMT located a team in Bangkok it should be expected. Actually, OMT would actually profit off of both betting and concessions at the games. Selling 10,000 tickets a game, betting, concession sales, corporate sponsorships, and merchandise sales could net OMT a mind boggling amount of Baht (Thai currency). Thailand basketball is not well developed, so some of this money could be reinvested in the country to develop youth basketball. There are 63 million people in the country, so you would think with access to basketball a lot of players would develop in the next ten years. This would be very similar to Europe after the Dream Team dominated in the Olympics in 1992.
OMT could start camps and youth leagues to develop the youth in the country. This would lead to better junior and senior teams in the next 5 to 10 years. OMT could go even further and start a winter professional basketball league in Thailand down the road. If 400,000 Icelanders can support a league, then you certainly would believe the 63 million people in Thailand would be up to the task.
Please do post your feedback in the forums!
Brent Blaze
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