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Exodus of Taiwan's sports people leads to dismay for fans

When Taiwan's professional basketball season started this week, one of the island's best teams was not on the court. The team plans to be dribbling and dunking in China instead.

Like many athletes lately, the players on the Sina team have given up on Taiwan, frustrated with a failing league and empty stands -- gripes also shared by the island's baseball teams.

The trend is worrying many fans, who fear that professional leagues in Taiwan are doomed to extinction.

Taiwan's athletic woes are partly caused by mismanagement, bickering owners and gambling scandals, industry experts say.

Some coaches and social critics, however, also argue that the root of the problem is a lack of talent, caused by a scholarly Confucian culture that encourages kids to spend sunny days indoors memorizing algebra formulas rather than swinging a bat or shooting hoops.

``Here, athletes are regarded as being stupid and those who are scholars are perceived as being good and smart,'' said Hsiao Chu-chen, a director of an award-winning documentary about Taiwanese little league team that beat the defending champions from Japan in 1968. ``It's all study, study, study,'' she said.

But Confucius probably doesn't deserve the bulk of the blame because neighboring Japan and South Korea have also been heavily influenced by the Chinese sage and still have popular and competitive sports.

And a lack of interest in sports doesn't seem to be a problem in Taiwan.

Cable television has three 24-hour sports channels that feature everything from NBA basketball and American baseball to billiards and Australian rules football.

When Michael Jordan announced he was returning to the NBA, his photo made the front pages of the leading papers.

The problem is that the owners of Taiwanese sports teams don't know how to attract the fans, and petty infighting keeps them from working together to promote the leagues, said Daniel Tu, CEO of E-ternational Sports Ventures.

The company owns the Sina basketball team, winner of the league's title three years in a row between 1996 and 1998.

``No one is looking ahead and thinking of ways to get fans into the seats,'' said Tu, whose team left Taiwan in October and hopes to compete in China's new league in December.

Taiwan's basketball league hasn't had a full season since its 1998 championships.

The island's two baseball leagues have been struggling since a 1997 gambling scandal that involved 11 out of Taiwan's top players. After the scandal, two teams folded.

Baseball coach Lin Hong-kuang doubts the sport will recover from the scandal because the league has yet to establish guidelines to keep the problem from recurring.

Lin has recently spent six months consulting for China's soon-to-be established baseball league, and he said at least 10 other coaches are thinking about moving to the mainland.

``Who's to say that in the end, the best players from here might get together and form one team and go to China,'' said Lin.

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