BEIRUT (Lebanon) - The FIBA Regional Office-Asia on Tuesday, August 5, has confirmed that China will host the highly anticipated FIBA Women's Basketball League Asia (WBLA) 2025 in September.
This marks the second consecutive time that the prestigious club competition will be played in the country following a successful staging of the tournament's inaugural edition last year held in Chengdu.
Set September 23-28, the WBLA 2025 will be played at the Dongguan Sports Centre in the city of Dongguan in the Guangdong Province, which was among the eight venues of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019.
Ball clubs from China, Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Mongolia, and Saudi Arabia will take part in this year's festivities as the competition has expanded to six teams after a quartet pioneered the 2024 games.
Sichuan Yuanda Meile Basketball Club emerged as the first-ever WBLA champions following a 74-69 victory over Japanese side Fujitsu Red Wave in front of over 8,000 fans at the Jinqiang International Event Center.
Led by eventual MVP Han Xu, the then-reigning two-time WCBA champions finished with a perfect 3-0 slate, with their first two wins coming at the expense of Indonesian side Surabaya Fever and Chinese Taipei's Cathay Life.
Both the Red Wave and the Tigers are coming back for 2025, leading a field that will feature four new participants spearheaded by reigning Women's Chinese Basketball Association champions Dongguan New Century.
2024-25 Women's Korean Basketball League champions Busan BNK Sum are also in the mix, together with the Ulaanbaatar Amazons, who emerged as champions of the 2024-25 Women The League of Mongolia.
Also in are Al Ula Club of Saudi Arabia, marking the first time that a team from the Gulf Region will take part.
The six teams will be divided into two groups according to the FIBA World Ranking for Women, presented by NIKE. Each club will compete against the others in a single round-robin format in the Group Phase.
The top two teams from each group will compete in the knockout crossover Semi-Finals, while the teams that will finish third in their groups will play a classification game for the fifth position.
Winners of the Semi-Finals will play for the championship in the one-game Final. The losing sides, meanwhile, will compete in the Third-Place Game which will be held just before the title bout.
The full schedule will be announced soon.
FIBA