NBA sign up to help Beijing venue legacy

BEIJING, Apr 25 (Reuters) The National Basketball Association (NBA) has signed a ''multi-year'' deal to help ensure the use of the basketball venue after the 2008 Olympics, the league's China chief said today.

Basketball is likely to be one of the biggest drawcards of next year's Games with China's many millions of NBA fans hoping that Houston Rockets centre Yao Ming can inspire the national team to victory at the 18,000-seater Wukesong Indoor Arena.

''BOCOG (the organising committee) and the city of Beijing have asked the NBA to ensure the basketball venue is a destination for fans not only during the Olympic Games but after the Olympic Games and for years to come,'' Mark Fischer told a news conference.

''We're getting involved now to ensure that various parts of this facility are built to world-class standards...it will remain a lasting legacy for the city of Beijing (and) basketball for many years to come.'' International Basketball Federation (FIBA) secretary general Patrick Baumann welcomed the news that the organising committee was already taking steps to ensure the use of the venue after the Games.

''The venue we used at the 2004 Athens Olympics, the Hellenikon, is currently an empty hangar and is not being used any more for basketball,'' he said.

''I think this is very good news if this venue will live beyond the Olympic Games and become a hotbed for basketball.'' The NBA also signed an agreement to provide an appropriate atmosphere during the basketball competition at the Games, as they did three years ago in Athens.

The league will provide expertise in court design and layout and entertainment and also offer an exchange programme to train up local staff.

BOCOG official Zhao Dongming said he thought the planned ''high-level Olympics with Chinese characteristics'' would survive a healthy dose of NBA razzmatazz.

''We will jointly plan and study and come up with a plan that has characteristics of the NBA and the characteristics of Beijing and China,'' he said.

REUTERS BJR HS1746