SOUTHPORT - FIBA's new competition system is ushering in a new era in basketball. From 2017 onwards 1,680 top players will compete in 1,200 national team games around the world.

This number of regular national team games is unprecedented. In preparation for this undertaking, the Oceania office conducted a FIBA statistician instructor workshop.

The workshop ran over the 23^rd-24^th of April. Three Australian and one New Zealand representatives were invited to become inaugural FIBA licensed statistician instructors.

All national team games require FIBA licensed statisticians. These four instructors will join many others around the world in preparing statisticians for the upcoming change in the international competitions calendar.

"I am excited by FIBA's new competition structure," said Australian Trish Nicholls. "It means more games in Australia which gives our stats people something to work towards. The previous model didn't offer many games in this region so there wasn't much to motivate our statisticians. Now there are all these games that will give them something to work towards."

"This workshop was a great opportunity to meet with other statisticians in the region to create consistency in the way we call games," said Lynley Quedley of New Zealand. "I am very excited by the opportunity to go back to New Zealand and share what I learned over these two days."

The workshop involved discussing situational interpretations and how these will be applied globally to create consistency throughout all FIBA national team competitions.

The participants also laid the foundation of how future FIBA statistician licensing workshops will be conducted under the new competition system.

With Australia and New Zealand looking to compete in Division A of the now competition system, these participants will be integral in transferring their knowledge to other within their respective federations.

FIBA's new competition system not only creates a greater number of national team games but it also means a major boost in the sports exposure around the world.

FIBA Regional Executive Director David Crocker stressed the importance of statistics to promote basketball through FIBA's digital strategy.

"The new calendar has created a never before seen opportunity for basketball. We have never seen a system that creates this much exposure for our sport in a global sense. It is integral that we do everything we can to take advantage of this opportunity," he said.

"FIBA recognises the importance of digital content and one of the greatest assets for pushing this medium is statistics."

The workshop was one of many initiatives FIBA is conducting worldwide to fully prepare for the inception of the new competition system beginning in 2017.

FIBA