JEDDAH, 25 November 2002 — Saudi Arabia’s first Ramadan night basketball tournament is in progress at a location at Tahlia Street here. In all 140 teams, all amateurs, are playing daily 16 matches at a makeshift court. Two games are played simultaneously in each half of the court. The tournament is organized by Publicis.Graphics and has sponsorships of half a dozen companies, including a newspaper.
“We’ve chosen the auspicious month of Ramadan to introduce basketball here, and it has turned out to be a big draw both among players and spectators, Faisal Al-Eisawi, senior account executive of Publicis.Graphics, told Arab News last night. A majority of teams are from Jeddah, with a few from Makkah, Riyadh and the Eastern Province, he said, adding that 85 percent of the players were Saudi. Players above the age of 17 are allowed to participate in the tournament. As the matches are played - each for a 10-minute duration, there are some 500 spectators cheering their favorite teams.
Al-Eisawi said the teams had been divided into four groups to facilitate the organization of matches. The tournament began over the weekend and will conclude with a 15-minute final match on Saturday. The winner will get a cash prize of SR10,000 and the runner-up SR4,000. Two main sponsors of the tournament are National Commercial Bank (NCB) and Future TV. One of the highlights of the tournament is that daily volunteers from the spectators’ gallery are called on to the field and asked to net the ball from a distance in one attempt. Each day one such spectator wins a cash prize of SR1,000. On Saturday, two of them won the prize.
On the opening day there was an exhibition match between Ittihad’s professional players, led by Capt. Ali Maghrabi, and some spectators. “Spectators enjoyed it very much and expressed their desire to play matches in future tournaments,” Zain Beyhumy, account director of Publicis.Graphics, said.
Matches will continue daily from 9.30 p.m. to 1.30 a.m.
