The city of Badalona (Barcelonès Nord) will host this weekend, the final of the First FIBA 3x3 Super League in Spain. The last of the competitions will take place in the La Plana Pavilion.
Organized by CB Sant Feliuenc and ValorusSports, the competition brings together 12 teams from 10 different countries, and has the best players in this discipline from the United States, Austria, Japan, Germany, Brazil and Spain. The Palacio de Deportes de Catalunya in Salou hosted the first matches and on Tuesday and Wednesday the semi-finals were played in Sant Feliu de Llobregat.
This first edition has had three venues: Tarragona (March 22 and 23), Sant Feliu de Llobregat (March 26 and 27) and Badalona (March 30 and 31). The competition was created with the purpose of promoting 3x3 in Spanish territory and making known the best teams on the FIBA 3x3 WorldTour circuit, as well as the participants of the FIBA 3x3 WorldChallengers.
In Salou, Team Vienna, from the Austrian capital, was proclaimed champion, after beating the Americans from Princeton by 21 to 17. The Austrians won a $10,000 prize and free entry to the Clermont-FerrandChallenger 2024 competition, which will be held next June in France.
In Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Vienna were the winners of the second day of competition, after beating the hosts Barcelona CBS 21-18. The Austrians won free access to the Orleans Challenger 2024. In Badalona, the team that is proclaimed champion and runner-up will obtain free access to the World Tour of Marseille, which will take place in the French city on May 31 and '1 June.
The sports director of the SuperLiga PRO 3x3, Marc Sobrepera, has highlighted the quality and diversity of players participating as well as the great professional value. "We will see many of these players who are participating in the 3x3 PRO SuperLiga in the next Olympic Games," said Sobrepera.
Born in the streets and on public courts, 3x3 is a variant of traditional basketball that is played in a single basket. For the point to count, a player must receive the ball outside the playing perimeter. Among its peculiarities is the fact that each team has 3 players on the court. The ball possession time is 12 seconds and the duration of the match is 10 minutes, or one of the two teams reaches 21 points. Three-pointers count two points and a normal basket counts one point. The motto of the competition is “From the street to the Olympic Games”, precisely because this 3x3 basketball discipline debuted as an Olympic sport at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
