MIES, Switzerland - FIBA has taken a huge leap forward with the launch of the TV Academy (www.fibatvacademy.com), a revolutionary, innovative and cutting edge online educational tool, which has been developed by the International Basketball Federation in order to guide and educate the users in the best practice production of a basketball game.

Basketball is a truly global game and, as with any global sport, the styles and ways of broadcasting the games vary significantly around the world. The TV Academy is the destination for basketball directors to visit and understand the basic fundamental principles and skills required for the optimum coverage of the sport of basketball.

The site content has been developed through the analysis of the production of basketball games from around the world and the input of basketball directors that have been responsible for FIBA World and Continental Championships, Olympic Games as well as NBA and Euroleague basketball games.

Through the TV Academy, FIBA will improve the overall production level of the game of basketball as well as improve the awareness, interest and visual image of the sport. This in turn will lead to more people of all ages, genders and cultures playing basketball. This tool will become increasingly important in relation to the new FIBA calendar in 2017 where more and more games will need to be produced around the world.

The TV Academy is a part of the state-of-the-art TV.FIBA.COM (http://tv.fiba.com/), a central platform at the disposal of FIBA’s Broadcast Partners to access all broadcast-related elements for all future global and continental events, starting with the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

The platform consists of five different areas:
- TV Academy
- TV Library
- TV Bookings
- Productions Documents
- Event - Spain 2014

The TV Library is made up of the following four sections which can be used for programming:
- Promotional Videos (such as "Ten Second Countdown" promos, team vignettes, city vignettes and the "Official Song" of the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup)
- Opening Sequences (2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup Opening Sequence and bumpers)
- Replay Wipes (newly-developed for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup and future events)
- TV Graphics (the next generation of FIBA graphics design)

The TV Bookings section was launched two months ago for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup and will be used for all future major events around the world.

The TV Bookings section also enables:
- FIBA to collate and coordinate all placed bookings per venue per event to ensure correct delivery
- FIBA to better serve the more than 70 Broadcast Partners (TV, Radio, New Media...etc) that access the various FIBA events around the world
- All FIBA Broadcast Partners to register in the system in order to then select the required event and start making their bookings
- All Broadcast Partners to confirm the games they wish to access by satellite and broadcast whether on a live or delayed basis and book additional facilities such as commentary positions, studio space, unilateral production facilities, pre- and post- game interviews et al

The Production Documents section will contain all of the various reference documents linked to the broadcast production. These documents will include, among others, the updated FIBA Broadcast Manual, the Event Countdown to Tip-Off for broadcasters and the guidelines to highlight production.

The section entitled "Event - Spain 2014" will become accessible once the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup tips off. The content in this section will consist of a variety of Video On Demand (VOD) content from each game (highlights, plays of the game… etc), each game day (Plays of the Day) and at the end of event (Top 10 plays of the event, All-Star Five and MVP vignettes… etc).  This section will be password protected and available for FIBA Broadcast Partners to access and to download the content.

The complete TV.FIBA.COM platform has been developed specifically as a working asset for FIBA's Partners to use the content to enhance their coverage of FIBA events starting with the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The platform will be ever-evolving with new content being added to the sections as it becomes available.

For more information, contact FIBA’s  TV Department (tv@fiba.com).

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About FIBA
FIBA (fiba.com) - the world governing body for basketball - is an independent association formed by 214 National Basketball Federations throughout the world. It is recognised as the sole competent authority in basketball by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

For further information about FIBA visit fiba.com or follow FIBA on facebook.com/fiba, twitter.com/fiba and youtube.com/fiba.