Fiba World Cup: for co-hosts Philippines, the basketball craze extends beyond the tournament
- Tournament hosted by Philippines, Indonesia and Japan runs until September 10
- Opening games featuring the Philippines will be staged at a 52,000-seat arena, with the cheapest tickets costing almost half the minimum daily wage
It may be dwarfed by other nations’ sporting prowess, but the Philippines’ fervour for basketball is gigantic, and enthusiasm for the sport is only intensifying ahead of the 2023 Fiba Basketball World Cup, which opens in Manila on Friday.
Basketball is played everywhere and by almost everyone in the Philippines, which counts the sport as a national obsession along with boxing and beauty pageants.
There is a basketball court of sorts set up near most churches, and whether it is in a cemetery or near a sewer, these places of worship are ubiquitous in this majority Catholic nation of 112 million people which is co-hosting the Fiba world championships from August 25 to September 10 with Indonesia and Japan.
“We are excited since the tournament will happen here. There are many players from the NBA that we are excited to see,” college student James Froilan Almeda said near championship venue Mall of Asia Arena.
The Philippines might not clinch the 32-nation championship but it can win some games, added Almeda. Fiba ranks the Philippines men’s team No 40 globally and the women’s No 42. Spain and the United States are in the top two spots.
Basketball first came to the Philippines in the 1910s, when it was a US colony. American teachers introduced the game to the public school system, initially just for girls.
