First level league and Second level league is like America's MLB and MiLB; One is more similar to "professional sports." and the other is more similar to "amateur ability." First level league mostly accepts students that have strong athletic ability. Since these students are all well trained, the competition is extreme. Under this kind of environment, students often abandon their academics in order to focus on their intense training. Even though participating in the First level league can guarantee admission to a decent college, their relatively weaker academic fundamentals will threaten their future academic and job opportunities. The second level league accepts students that have decent athletic skills and grades but don’t have an opportunity or place to use their talent. As a result, top athletic students don't have the time or energy to maintain their academics, whereas good academic students don't have the time or opportunity to show their skills.
This results in the general community having a misconception about participating in sports. If Taiwan has a sports league that could combine the two leagues' advantages, this new league could not only guarantee the long-term development of athletic students but also change the sports atmosphere of the entire society.
Basketball Development in Taiwan
Taiwan started to promote students' basketball league in 1988. After many years of hard work and support from society, it began to grow. In 2012, due to the tide of "Linsanity," schools started to establish school basketball teams. Teenagers began to actively participate in basketball.
Governmental Actions
Taiwan’s government had been actively promoting national sports policies and doing related surveys on the topic. In the telephone survey done by the SEO in 2002, concluded the following points:
The amount of people exercised within the past three months is about 98.71% where the ones that didn’t is about 1.29%
The most common sports people participate in are; walking, jogging, playing basketball, fast walk, field trip, and mountain climbing.
The reason people participate in sports activities is; being healthy, for fun and requested by the company or school.
The reasons people didn’t exercise are because being too busy, having no chance and no specific reason.
About 67.68%of people watch sports events.
Most people use television as the media to watch sports events.
Most people exercise at park (37.28%) school(35.08%) and private area (26.14%)
Most of the people follow sport’s news with television, which is about 62.64% and newspaper second, 21.78%.
People believe when government is promoting “nation exercise together” must first build more public venues so people would have more interest to exercise and eventually become a habit.
People believe that in order to raise the sport level, it’s important to look after the athletes, guarantee their future, including their retirement life.
According to the survey done in 2004, on the topic of the exercising habit of universities students in the northern district, most students participate in sports activities, mostly basketball, walking, badminton, and swimming. About 77.38% if student watches sports events or competitions, mostly basketball, baseball, and 9 ball game, and with television. This survey shows the devotion of Taiwan's students toward sport; therefore, if the government could tackle the issue of lack of public sports venues and the right of athletes, sport industry could develop better in Taiwan.
Development Timeline
In 1988, Taiwan's education department established the highschool basketball league. The competition is separated into eight main regions for the preliminary round. During the Finals, the region’s ranking will be separate to 4 levels, playing the finals concentrately.
In 1989 to 1992, in order to fully use the ability of each school league, and to strengthen the lively atmosphere, the competition was changed into two main leagues. Games started to use on a home and away basis.
In 1993, the officials set the competitions based on the school's basketball ability, then seperate into the First level and Second level group. This continues until the 2000s.
In 1995, the officials cooperated to broadcast 10 games, this is the first time to put a high school basketball league game on screen.
Groups are renamed as first level and second level.
In 2017, Second level national finals are live on Happy Level TV, three of them are also broadcast on VL sports. Purefly sponsered the jerseys, while the main style of the games are set as "Genesis".
In 2018, not just FOX sports have the TV broadcast, on the internet, IQIYI and CameraBay also live the games, HBL (High School Basketball League) becomes more and more popular.
In 2020, due to the new Coronavirus, HBL officials and the Ministry of Health and Welfare had meeting and decided, games after February 9th won’t let the audience watch directly. They can only watch television and internet broadcasts. The player, coaches, and other workers must go group by group, wear masks and measure their body temperatures. During the intermissions, the workers will also disinfect the environment. This is the first time HBL has no audience at all.
Conclusion
As you can see above, basketball competitions are able to get the community’s support, but how should we promote it for a long term? Changing the public's mind and bias is necessary. Athletic students can also maintain their academics, their future can rely on other directions instead of just sports.
