Get Ready for the Ultimate Showdown: Ezhou City’s Second ‘Labor BA’ Kicks Off on September 28 with 24 Teams Fired Up for Victory
Original title: The second “Industry BA” in Ezhou City will start on September 28, and 24 teams will be passionate about basketball
Jingchu.com (Hubei Daily Online) (Reporter Zeng Dafei, Correspondent Wei Jun) “The preparations for the second Ezhou City ‘GongBA’ workers’ men’s basketball game are in full swing and are about to kick off.” On August 30, at a press conference, Liu Jiangfeng, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Executive Vice Chairman of the Ezhou Federation of Trade Unions, said.
In the autumn of 2023, Ezhou City held the first “GongBA” men’s basketball game for employees. After 44 days and 84 exciting and fierce competitions, 18 teams successfully completed the entire schedule. It is also the first pure “GongBA” event in the country. From workshops, factories and mines to thousands of households, everyone discussed and passionately shared the grand occasion of this basketball feast. Nearly 25 million people on the Internet paid attention to Ezhou’s first “GongBA”.
In August this year, the Ezhou Federation of Trade Unions began to prepare for the second “GongBA” men’s basketball game in Ezhou, and made detailed arrangements for the registered participating units, registration time, award settings, competition time, and qualification review of athletes and referees.
Liu Jiangfeng revealed that the number of participating teams in the second “GongBA” has increased to 24 teams. Enterprises, factories and construction sites in Ezhou can form teams directly or jointly, and industry unions can also form teams to participate. This will attract more employees to participate and showcase the style of Chinese workers.
The competition will start on September 28, 2024, and will be held every Saturday and Sunday. The competition will be divided into two groups, A and B, by lottery, and a round-robin group match will be held. The top four will then be selected for the 4th to 8th place qualifying match and the championship, runner-up and third place competition.
Liu Jiangfeng said that the referee team and referee level of the second “Industrial BA” have been further improved. They must hold a national level 2 certificate or above and register with the Basketball Association Referee Committee to participate in refereeing. In the group stage, local referees will avoid serving as referees in each game. There will be two foreign referees in each qualifying game for 4-8th place, and three foreign referees in the championship, runner-up and third place competition to ensure fairness and justice in the game.
It is reported that, unlike other competitions, the Ezhou “GongBA” team has only one category, abbreviated as “Three Workers”, namely factories, construction sites, and workers. The participating players are all union members and workers in enterprises from all walks of life. At the same time, there is a team composed of model workers participating in the competition. The “GongBA” has the surname “Gong”, and the characteristic of the word “Gong” is its mark that distinguishes it from other competitions.