The Sport Arena Streetball series of 3×3 basketball events started in 2005, when the first tournament took place, organized in the sports facility of the University of Politehnica Bucharest, with the participation of 32 teams.
Sport Arena Streetball has become in just a few years a real sports phenomenon with thousands of participants and tens of thousands of spectators attending the events over a season. The popularity of the events transcended the Romanian borders.
Some of the most popular slam-dunk competitions – European Dunk Contest, World Dunk Contest, World King of Dunk – took place in Bucharest, with the participation of athletes from all around the globe. These events have contributed to the development and popularization of this discipline as well as to the creation of a new category of “professional dunkers”, who currently have their own organizations and they are displaying their skills in shows around the world.
The concept of the Sport Arena Streetball series of 3×3 basketball events – regular tournaments, from which the best teams qualify for a final tournament, along with a set of basic rules and the management style of a tournament attracted the attention of the International Basketball Federation since 2008.
Along the following years FIBA has repeatedly certified Sport Arena Streetball events, and representatives of the international forum have been present several times in Bucharest to attend our tournaments, certifying them both verbally and in writing.
“ Sport Arena is one of the pillars of 3×3 basketball development worldwide and their tournaments are serving as best practice examples.” – FIBA
With FIBA support, 3×3 basketball was first officially unveiled as a discipline at the Singapore Youth Olympic Games in 2010. Two years later, in 2012, the FIBA 3×3 Competition Network was developed, a network of 3×3 basketball tournaments around the world, including the top tier, the FIBA 3×3 World Tour. The professional circuit includes several master tournaments and a final tournament.
Sport Arena Streetball events have been included in the FIBA 3×3 Competition Network since the first season, as qualifiers for the FIBA 3×3 World Tour.
Also in the same year, 2012, the Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Challenger international tournament started, a landmark among Challenger tournaments around the world and one of the strongest tournaments in Europe. The best teams and the best players in the world participated over the years in Raiffeisen Bank Bucharest Challenger, and the University Square, venue for four consecutive editions (2013-2017), became a true landmark of 3×3 basketball and was mentioned in the famous American magazine Sports Illustrated in 2013.
Sport Arena Streetball has supported, through its events, the global development of the 3×3 basketball discipline and also its inclusion in the Olympic Games program, which came in 2017. One of the first actions of the International Basketball Federation to support 3×3 basketball as a future Olympic discipline was the organization in Bucharest, in 2013, of a showcase tournament for the International Olympic Committee, attended by world basketball legends such as Vlade Divac, Sarunas Marciulionis or Jorge Garbajosa, representatives of the CIO as well as many Romanian sport legends.
Currently, Sport Arena Streetball tournaments are recognized as examples of good practice worldwide, with extensive case studies being included in the programs of the International Basketball Federation and the World Academy of Sports. As an eloquent proof of professionalism, starting with 2015, Sport Arena became a member of the FIBA 3×3 Advisory Board as a representative of the organizers of 3×3 basketball tournaments. Our organization has also a representative in the FIBA 3×3 Commission, the body that makes decisions at the highest level for the development of 3×3 basketball.
Also, since 2015, Sport Arena is a constant consultant and FIBA supervisor for the international competitions, including World and Zone Cups, U23 Nations League, World Tour, Women Series and Challenger events