MANILA, Philippines – FIBA, the world governing body for basketball, will use a new competition format and calendar starting 2017, ushering a change that the organization hopes will lead to the growth of the sport worldwide.

Among the key changes are: moving the FIBA Basketball World Cup from 2018 to 2019, in order to avoid clashing with the FIFA World Cup; increasing the number of participating teams from 24 to 32; and putting teams from Asia and Oceania together in one Asia-Pacific region.

There will now be a two-year qualification period for each FIBA World Cup, with home-and-away games being played in "competition windows" scheduled on November, February, June, September, and again in November and February.

Moreover, qualification for the Olympics games will be through the FIBA World Cup, and four Olympic Qualifying Tournaments.

READ: FIBA out to make basketball most popular sport in the world

This video explains the details of the new FIBA calendar and qualification format:

What will this mean for the Gilas Pilipinas program?

First of all, the national basketball team will be more active, instead of playing in just one major tournament every summer. They will also be more "visible," thanks to the home-and-away format that requires them to play in their home floor during the competition windows.

The FIBA competition windows, however, will be in conflict with the schedule of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). According to FIBA officials, it will be up to the PBA and the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) to ressolve this issue.

"It is the responsibility of the national federations to discuss with the local league and open the window for the national team program," Predrag Bogosavljev, FIBA's sports and competitions director, said on Sunday.

"But we tried to minimize the impact on the national league," he added.

Each competition window will last for nine days, and the national team will only be play two games in those windows, unlike the packed schedule of summer tournaments.

The SBP has tried to get ahead of this problem by reforming the Gilas Cadets program, wherein former collegiate stars will now be called upon to represent the country as the Philippines hopes to qualify for the FIBA World Cup in 2019.

More information is available in the FIBA website.

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