FIBA Year of Women’s Basketball

The main goal of the Year of Women’s Basketball was to:

Bring focus to Women’s Basketball
To increase the popularity and recognition of Women’s Basketball
Increase participation, recruitment more players in all age categories
To raise the profile of players and teams
To see more female referees and coaches officiating in games on both a national and international level

Co-operation

FIBA Europe will work with a wide range of partners to disseminate information about the Year of Women’s Basketball and promote the campaign.

The 50 National Federations of FIBA Europe will be asked to:

Appoint a contact person at the office for the Year of Women’s Basketball
Create a calendar of top-10 events for the promotion of the project
Intelligently use the Year of Women’s Basketball promotional materials
Nominate national role models for the Year of Women’s Basketball
Give regular feedback to FIBA Europe to improve the quality of the event
Promote women’s basketball in their best possible way
Show involvement, enthusiasm and dedication to the project!

The clubs participating in FIBA Europe women’s club competitions and the players in Europe will also be key partners in the Year of Women’s Basketball and will be asked to:

Help with promotional campaigns
An ambassador will be appointed among Europe’s active players to be the face of the Year of Women’s Basketball

Outside Partners

To optimize the chances of success for the Year of Women‘s Basketball, FIBA Europe is building relationships with important European (women‘s) sports institutions such as the European Union for the project “International Year of Sport and Physical Education 2005” and the International Olympic Committee.

How can the project benefit international women/sport associations?

More female sports participation
Improvement of health
Integration through sport
Development of team spirit and discipline
Fight against obesity
Education throught sport
Improvement of self confidence

Competitions

FIBA Europe’s official competitions for both men and women will be key platforms to promote the Year of Women’s Basketball.

EuroBasket Women is the top European event for women´s national teams and is held every two years.

The success of EuroBasket Women 2005 in Turkey clearly demonstrates that more and more people are discovering the high professional level and special charm in this field of sport.

EuroBasket Women offers an exciting competition featuring top European players from the EuroLeague, EuroCup Women and all other FIBA Europe competitions. Hundreds of media representatives cover the championship and games are broadcast worldwide.

At the Youth European Championships, young players have the chance to show their talent and make their first step towards playing basketball as a professional. In these competitions, future stars emerge. These events will be used to promote the Year of Women’s Basketball to involve all age groups to participate.

The aim is also to motivate the federations to invest in the youth, as they represent the future!

FIBA Europe is aware of the need for continuous development of youth basketball, thereby offering more and more financial support to these age categories. The annual budget for youth competitions has increased to over one million Euro.

This article is reprinted with permission from the FIBA Europe website