BEIJING (China) - FIBA has gained recognition for a successful FIBA Asia Cup 2025 tournament by winning the 'Annual Influential Event' category at the prestigious Weibo Sports Awards.
It marks the second consecutive year that FIBA has taken an honor from the Chinese social media powerhouse, having previously won the 'Annual Rising Star Event' at the Weibo Basketball Awards in 2024 for the successful organizing and promoting of international youth competitions.
Compared to the Weibo Basketball Awards, the Weibo Sports Awards encompasses all sports categories, including e-sports. Hosted on the Weibo platform, the 2025 event livestream reached 410 million views to underline the increase in both scale and visibility.
With a total of 15 awards on offer, the ceremony brought together top athletes, e-sports players, sports industry guests, celebrities and artists. It featured 21 world class athletes, including Olympic champions Deng Yaping, Lang Ping, Lin Dan, Wu Minxia, Hui Ruoqi, and Zou Shiming, as well as 186 industry celebrities.
The 'Annual Influential Event' award handed to FIBA was driven by the outstanding performance of FIBA Asia Cup 2025 content on Weibo, which broke multiple records. This included an astounding 7.1 billion impressions and 312 trending topics on the platform, with the tournament hashtags also frequently topping the trending charts.
Held in Saudi Arabia from August 5 to 17, there's no doubt that the incredible levels of engagement were helped by China making a stunning run to the title game for the first time in a decade. While they eventually had to settle for runners-up, they played in a Final for the ages, edged out 90-89 by Australia, who completed a three-peat.
The award was presented to FIBA by the Vice President and General Manager of Migu Video, Li Li.
"We are delighted that the FIBA Asia Cup 2025 has been recognized by Weibo as the 'Annual Influential Event' and we express a huge thank you to Weibo and to all the amazing basketball fans for their continued support," stated FIBA China Managing Director, Kelvin Fang.
"This summer, basketball once again brought Asia together as we witnessed incredible passion, breakthrough performances, and the rise of a new generation of players."
He continued: "It was especially inspiring to see the Chinese team return to the Final after ten years. We look forward to bringing even more exciting games and unforgettable stories to fans in the future."
Other award winners included the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix, World Table Tennis, League of Legends Pro League (LPL), and the China Open (Tennis).
FIBA