FIBA - Excitement grows for FIBA World Championship with one month to go

ISTANBUL (FIBA World Championship) - Before you know it the biggest event in world basketball will be thrilling spectators, tv audiences and basketball fans all around the globe.

Every Championship tries to BUILD-UP its COUNT-DOWN. Whether "one year to go", 100 days, three-full moons or the number of hours equal to the sum of the points scored in last edition's final, countdowns are a a feature of the run up to any Championship.

But we are not going to make a big deal about today's date. However, we ARE going to make a big deal about what we can all look forward to between 28th August and 12th September.

So (with one month to go), here are a few things you can look forward to:

- A Championship more open than ever, with at least 10 teams having a chance to bring home gold
- Passion from Turkish host fans that rivals that of any other country in the world
- Unprecedented spectator and media response
- Fan tailored coverage on FIBA's online channels
- Brand new basketball arenas that look superb and of course the monster Final Round Sinan Erdem Olympic dome
- Sports building bridges in the first round games USA vs Iran and Turkey vs Greece
- The birth of new heroes of the game: Kevin Durant? Ricky Rubio? Joakim Noah? Nick Calathes? Patrick Mills?
- Gold, Silver and Bronze medals; another major chapter in basketball being written
- Bascat - the coolest mascot of 2010 - getting up to mischief as he visits the four host cities
- Hoops, dunks, 3-pointers, alley-oops, buzzer-beaters
- Blocks, steals, nasty rebounds
- and plenty more

So remember the date. On 28th August the 2010 FIBA World Championship gets underway., Now don't tell us we didn't warn you.

FIBA