FIFA vs FIBA World Cups - Why no viewing parties?

Basketball is considered the #2 sport in America - well ahead of soccer. The narrative is that America loves national team competitions. The FIBA World Cup is certainly huge.

Why are there no significant viewing parties in the US?

It seems to me that the FIBA World Cup is about as popular in America as the WNBA playoffs.

 

This is pretty simple. Soccer's World Cup is considered the pinnacle of competition, featuring the very best players on earth, and those players are spread around various teams, several of which have a good chance to win the whole thing and many more of which can be competitive against the world's top national teams on a given day.

Many (most?) of the best players in the world avoid basketball's World Cup. There's no money in it for them, and they know they'll get better competition in a regular-season NBA game than they'll see in the World Cup. I'd guess you'd see more overall talent in a Bobcats-Pelicans game than in the vast majority of World Cup games not involving the U.S. (and maybe one or two other teams).

And even if the best players showed up, most of the national teams would go in knowing they don't have a chance in hell of competing for the title or even being remotely competitive against the Americans or a top team (actually, that's the case even with the U.S. fielding its B-team).

In short, the basketball World Cup is a mildly interesting (at best) exhibition. It is far from the pinnacle of its sport.

 

Also, soccer's World Cup is played in June and July, when the only competition for the sports viewer's attention in America is the middle of the MLB season. The basketball WC is overrun by the start of the football seasons, and that would be the case even if the Dream Team was playing.

 

Good answers. Thanks.