It’s the dream of all fans of the orange ball: to have a basketball complex accessible 7 days a week to be able to feel the swelling from morning to evening, whether it’s raining, selling or snowing. A dream now accessible for Strasbourg residents, who have had the opportunity to have a brand new Basket Center since the end of 2021. Come on, it’s time for the visit.
Paris, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand and Orléans have their own Hoops Factory, Noisy-le-Grand has “The One Ball”, and Strasbourg now has its own Basket Center. The Alsatian capital has indeed just placed itself on the map of indoor basketball centers in France, thus offering a place accessible to all, combining passion, sharing and conviviality. The latter, which was inaugurated in November 2021 at the instigation of the Bas-Rhin Departmental Basketball Committee and located just opposite the Stade de la Meinau, is a structure of approximately 3,000 m² which includes in particular:
- 3 FIBA World approved 5×5 basketball courts, which can be transformed into six 3×3 half-courts, open for rental (8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends)
- a weight training room for those who want to have the same physical condition as LeBron James
- a shooting machine to try to become the next Stephen Curry
- NGTV technology to film the matches on the different pitches, perfect for reviewing your greatest exploits and your worst air-balls
- a sportsbar allowing you to watch NBAextra with friends
- a restaurant, La Table de Marque, to regain strength following exercise
- a wellness area (sauna and massages) to properly relax the muscles following having chained the tomars
- a climbing wall for those who want to experience the same feeling as Ja Morant when he climbed Jakob Poeltl
- a meeting room, always practical for companies wishing to organize seminars
That’s for the main features. But the Basket Center is above all a diversified offer so that everyone finds their account. Want to play basketball with friends following work or between noon and two? It is enough to reserve one of the lands available on the site of the structure. If you prefer to train alone, it is also possible with an individual coach who will help you progress. And if your heart is to chain the shootings of the car park, you can rent the famous shooting machine. So many possibilities, among others.
Strasbourg, land of basketball
With almost 15,000 members, Bas-Rhin is one of those departments where the orange ball bounces a lot and which symbolizes the overall development of basketball in France over the last decade. In addition to the locomotive represented by the blue-white-red players who are a hit in the great world of the NBA (Tony Parker and Boris Diaw first, then Joakim Noah and Nicolas Batum, Rudy Gobert and Evan Fournier today), the great performances of SIG Strasbourg since the mid-2000s (a French championship title, two French Cups won, twice winner of the As/Leaders Cup week, good results on the European scene) while the Alsatian football was at the bottom of the hole participated in the rise of local enthusiasm around basketball. You add to that a pure house product in the person of Frank Ntilikina who went to join the NBA by becoming the highest drafted French player in history in 2017, and you get an increasingly strong basketball culture within the Alsatian capital.
But to honor it and deal with a certain saturation in terms of sports infrastructure, this necessarily involves the creation of new and innovative equipment. Equipment that meets a growing demand from practitioners as well as new forms of practice. At a time when free practice – that is to say outside the framework of traditional competitions – is increasingly sought following and when new methods are developing such as 3×3 basketball, Strasbourg lacked a flagship location that can meet these different needs. Admittedly, the Parc de la Citadelle located not far from the university is already an essential meeting place for basketball lovers wishing to try the ball at any time of the day, just for the pleasure of the game and to smell the tar. But street basketball very quickly knows its limits when the courts are shielded, when the weather gets involved, when the worn equipment no longer allows optimal practice. This is where the Basket Center comes in.
Continue to develop the practice of basketball, for all
Between the sound of shoes on the floor, the music in the background, the NBA night games rebroadcast at the bar and the little TrashTalk agenda found in the mini-store opposite the reception, the atmosphere of the ball orange is immediately felt inside the Basket Center. But the richness of this place does not lie solely in the quality of the infrastructures, although the FIBA World-approved pitches offer a certain comfort of practice as well as numerous possibilities as regards the organization of future competitions. This richness lies above all in the diversity of the people who frequent the centre.
Licensed and unlicensed, men and women, young and old, individuals, schools and companies… there are many profiles who stop at the Basket Center. Some come there to have a good time, others are there to improve their skills, or forge social ties through the practice of basketball. From the very beginnings of the project, this diversity was at the heart of the vision of the president of the Bas-Rhin Departmental Basketball Committee, Denis Oehler.
“For me, basketball is a vehicle for many things. As much as it is at the societal, associative or personal level, everyone must find their place. »
Everyone, and in particular those who can be considered as part of disadvantaged groups such as young people living in Priority Areas of the City. Around a hundred kids from QPV Meinau and Elsau have passed through the Basket Center since it opened. As part of “Generation Hoops” courses in collaboration with the socio-cultural centers in the area, they were entitled to a free initiation in a room that can quickly make you want to take yourself for Kevin Durant or LeBron James.
“For us, it’s important to make people discover our sport but also the team spirit and the rules of life that accompany it. Through the internships that we can set up, it gives these young people the impression of playing a little bit somewhere in America. »
Léo Westermann and Nicolas Lang, Alsatians by birth who play today respectively at AS Monaco and CSP Limoges, would no doubt have loved playing in such an atmosphere during their youth. However, this regret does not weigh heavily today in the face of the possibilities that the Basket Center can offer in their desire to transmit their passion to youngsters. Léo and Nico have already reserved the center for their traditional summer camp, open to different age categories and not requiring a minimum level to be able to participate. The personal coaches who are present on site on a daily basis have a similar mission, they who occasionally welcome young people wishing to gauge themselves and progress before possibly embarking on competitive practice within a club. In a way, the center now represents a four-star platform that simply makes basketball more accessible.
Make basketball accessible and at the same time use it as a vector of social bond. Because the orange ball is also and above all that. A way to get together, a way to share, a way to make friends around a common passion. This is how the Basket Center decided to set up a “Pick-up Games” offer intended in particular for solo players who want to find a nice team to play basketball for an evening. The concept ? Nothing very complicated. You register via the Basket Center website or app, you arrive on your own, you join a team and then you play. And if it goes well with your one-night teammates, there’s even a way to share a drink or a burger following the shower.
“It’s only people who sign up and come, and suddenly we create teams with people who are there when they know absolutely nothing. Now we even get dates with people who say ‘see you next Friday’. It creates a bond. »
A dynamic, lively place, ready to welcome everyone and within the financial reach of different audiences. This is what Denis Oehler imagined when the Basket Center was still just an idea. So today, when he occasionally sees the three courts being occupied at the same time over the whole of an followingnoon, both by young people and by older ones, by girls and boys, for 5 ×5 or 3×3, he can’t help but feel great pride. Especially since this room emerged from the ground in the midst of a health crisis, a crisis which obviously did not facilitate the launch of the center but which at the same time allowed it to become a symbol of the reopening of the various post-COVID infrastructures. And the objective now is to continue to grow the enthusiasm around the Basket Center so that it becomes an essential place in the Strasbourg sports landscape. To make it a financially viable project in the long term in order to be able to use the profits collected to further develop basketball in the Bas-Rhin area.
A place of sharing, conviviality and pleasure, the Basket Center of Strasbourg responds to a demand that has been growing in recent years. And above all, it offers new possibilities to allow the development of the orange ball, both locally and in a more global perspective with the arrival of Paris 2024. The center might effectively serve as a place of preparation for certain national selections in view of the next Olympic Games, especially since a 3×3 pitch in proper form – outdoors but covered – should soon be added to the centre.
Acknowledgements: Denis Oehler (President of the Bas-Rhin Departmental Basketball Committee), the entire Basket Center team
