A Bay Area Team is Aiming to be the Champion of the Americas

After completing a third season, the Women’s PBA had a major announcement over the weekend. As a sanctioned league, the competition is able to participate in the wider FIBA ecosystem around the world and will be sending the Bay Area Phoenix to the second Women’s Basketball League Americas tournament. The team will be one of four teams playing three games in the group stage in Medellin, Colombia in September with the top two teams advancing to the final stage in November where the winner will be the club champion of the entire Americas. While one of the league’s teams will be the representative, that does not limit who can be included on the roster when the team actually starts playing.

Representing the United States

FIBA has implemented a number of different new competitions to help facilitate the growth of women’s basketball around the world in recent years and globalizing the club game has been a big goal. South America has had some form of club championship since 1981 with the latest effort being formalized after the pandemic. Last year, FIBA announced and created the first tournament open to teams across the Americas, hoping to continue some of the recent growth in their Central American region. Five teams in South America were joined by two clubs from Mexico and a team formed in El Salvador to play out the first tournament.

Many leagues in the United States, even those with consistent and formal structure, do not bother with sanctioning due to a lack of perceived benefits. The WPBA has been integrated into the global ecosystem from the start, knowing that while they built up what benefits they could provide to players, they would be trying to elevate aspiring professionals to stand out for other opportunities around the world. With FIBA looking for more teams outside of South America to compete in this new tournament, having a representative from a sanctioned league in the United States is a big move.

Tournament Format

FIBA just announced the teams in the other group last week as four South American teams will compete for two spots in the final stage. Ferro Carril Oeste will host those three days of games in Buenos Aires joined by fellow Argentinian club Union Florida, which just won the championship. This season’s championship in Uruguay has not concluded yet so the champions from last season, Malvin, will also participate. Chilean champions Sportiva Italiana will complete that group.

The teams in the Bay Area Phoenix’s group were announced yesterday. The one South American team in this group for the four northernmost teams in the competition is the host team Indeportes Antioquia, which won the inaugural tournament last November. Salvadorenas returns to the competition to provide representation for El Salvador. Leagues run all over Mexico during the course of the year and the final team in the competition will be Pioneras de Delicias, which does not play in one of the major national competitions.

Global Competition

While an Americas-wide championship is a new addition, other confederations have certainly had a longer history of crowning a club champion. The most well known to Americans is certainly FIBA Europe’s EuroLeague Women, which was first played in 1959 and now features the women’s basketball teams with the largest payrolls in the world and some of the biggest WNBA stars. The now Africa Women’s Basketball League has been crowning that continent’s champion since 1985. With the Americas added now as well, FIBA can now resume focus on organizing a similar club competition for Asia, which has many teams with resources, but has a lot of insularity to fight through to convince stakeholders to contest a true club championship.

From 2003 to 2007, FIBA organized four different tournaments with representatives from around the world, including top clubs from Europe, Brazil, Cuba, China, South Korea, Australia, as well as touring teams from the United States twice. With three expanded versions of FIBA’s Intercontinental Cup being contested on the men’s side, there is a blueprint for a women’s version to be started once an Asian competition is added so that club teams from Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Europe can face off to determine an official world club champion.