RIGA (Latvia) - It may be one of Europe's best-kept secrets, but Estonia is among the corners of the continent where basketball is king. And nowhere is that more visible than at FIBA EuroBasket 2025, where thousands of Estonian fans have painted Riga blue.
Even if you’re in just one arena, EuroBasket feels like it stretches across the continent. We saw the impressive crowds for Slovenia and France in Poland. We enjoyed the packed stands in Tampere. We sang along, not knowing the words, to what the Bosnia and Herzegovina faithful were singing in Cyprus.
And the historic moment of Cyprus and Greece singing their anthem together brought chills down our spines.
It's crazy. People are having parties here, and it should be like this.
But the secret is out: no group has traveled quite like the Estonians.
More than 8,000 of them have poured into Riga, turning every game into a home game for the nation quite symbolically set to host FIBA EuroBasket 2029.
"It's crazy. People are having parties here, and it should be like this," Estonia's Henri Drell gasped when asked about the gigantic group following their team.
Of course, the trip southward from Estonia to Latvia is not a long one, but when you see the blue jerseys all over the city of Riga, you're asking yourself if there's anybody left in Estonia.
"I'm very, very happy for us, for the Estonian people that they got to see us, and I'm very thankful for them," Drell added after a magnificent win over Czechia.
He smiled to the notion that his phone is probably blowing up with ticket requests these days.
"A couple of... I got some. But I tell you that, I got all my people satisfied."
With the sea of blue spreading in thousands on the Baltic coast, we wondered what was the largest travelling group in recent FIBA EuroBasket history.
Think back to 2022, and Finland had around 5,000 fans basically moving to Prague for a week to follow Lauri Markkanen and his teammates in the Group Phase.
In 2017, as Slovenia stormed to the Final, there were talks of somewhere between 10 and 15 charter flights from Ljubljana to Istanbul, but that was the first ever Slovenian appearance in the Final, not just a random Group Phase game on a Friday afternoon.
"It's unbelievable, it's like 10,000 of them, or how much can it be here? They support us like crazy. It gives us energy," Kristian Kullamae added his two cents about the people with Estonian shirts and jerseys in Riga.
"We were able to use this energy on the court. Super thanks to the fans. It definitely feels like we're hosting the EuroBasket. We're playing at home," Kullamae added.
While Riga feels like a home away from home, Estonia will welcome the next edition of EuroBasket, so consider their 8,000 traveling fans a sign of things to come when we move to Tallinn four summers from now.
The preview of the stands is in line with the preview of what's happening on the court, too. Estonia nearly stunned Latvia, they blew out Czechia with ease, and at 1-2, they have a legit chance of making the Round of 16.
"It might be like that, we are the team like this, then we play against the bigger teams, and they're scared of us like that, so yeah, this is a preview," Drell was showing off his endless confidence after the game on Saturday.
Just like most big cold waters, the Baltic sea is dark, giving off shades of gray for most of the year. But add an asterisk to that description.
For a couple of weeks in late August and early September, it might turn completely blue, reflecting the gigantic migrating group traveling along the coast from Estonia to Latvia to witness Drell, Kullamae and others fight their hearts out for that jersey with Eesti embedded on the front.
FIBA