Eurobasket 2025 Dominant era, GERMANY are World AND European CHAMPIONS!

[peZt]

To all the German posters here, gotta ask... is the gold medal/parade for your team smaller than the Silver , Bronze and whatever celebration FIN gonna throw?

Like Schnakenpopanz said, no one cares about basketball in Germany. Just for reference, I played against 4 members of the team in minor leagues. That's just how small the basketball community is.

And if we included those that weren't on the team but probably should have been if not for injuries (Kleber, Hartenstein), that number would move up to 6.

I'm still happy that we understand how to develop players. Basketball has kind of become "the most German thing", because of how this system is just automated since 2012 and now we just live with the results and no one has changed anything ever since.

wait..does Germany care or not?

Basketball is probably not even sport #10 here in Germany. Local teams have loyal fanbases and the arena's are full, so the domestic league is actually really fun. But I wouldnt even call those fans fans of Basketball, but just loyal fans of their teams. I come from Braunschweig, the city where D SChroeder and Theis come from, and I know many people who support the local team and go to the games but probably couldnt name 5 non-german Basketball players outside of the german league.

And in mainstream media and pop culture, its completely non-existent and irrelevant. The german Eurobasket championship will be in the news for a few days and then forgotten.

And if the last 3 years that are maybe the best 3 year stretch of any european team in the last 3 decades doesnt cause Basketball to get into the mainstream, nothing will

But since Germany is the best european nation with a top 3 youth department in Europe despite the above, who cares how popular it is. It obviously doesnt negatively effect the quality of Basketball

[-Luke-]

Errrr his height? 6'6 and above arent normal in Germany? Still... i guess its different with everyone. You would think the highest paid athelte of a country, being paid higher than footballers,would be publicize more. Guess its a culture thing.

6'10 is really rare everywhere in the world. How many people of that height do you actually know?

Yes, American culture. Let's talk about that again when Wagner gets paid by Germans... Would you start to watch Bollywood films because a compatriot of yours gets paid more in India than Hollywood actors?

By the way, have you guys seen Franz next to Giannis during the celebration? They are more or less the same height.

To paraphrase Brian Scalabrine here: Franz is closer to Wemby in height than he is to Dennis Schröder.

[RookieStar]

Errrr his height? 6'6 and above arent normal in Germany? Still... i guess its different with everyone. You would think the highest paid athelte of a country, being paid higher than footballers,would be publicize more. Guess its a culture thing.

6'10 is really rare everywhere in the world. How many people of that height do you actually know?

Yes, American culture. Let's talk about that again when Wagner gets paid by Germans... Would you start to watch Bollywood films because a compatriot of yours gets paid more in India than Hollywood actors?

By the way, have you guys seen Franz next to Giannis during the celebration? They are more or less the same height.

To paraphrase Brian Scalabrine here: Franz is closer to Wemby in height than he is to Dennis Schröder.

We Magic realgmers already know Franz is 6'11.

As I mentioned before, we got posters since the Dwight era go up to our players and see for themselves their true height. In Franz case, I forgot which poster but he went up to Franz, Paolo and Moe in the Starbucks line to chat them up. He said Franz was taller than 6'10 Paolo and that Moe was taller than Franz.

[Doctor MJ]

I have read that those nordic or whatever region guys like " the mountain" came from, 6'10 are not a big deal. If 6'6 is normal... 6'10 might be no biggie as well. Compared to say thoe SEA countries where being a 6footer gets you stared at.

That would be Iceland. Where the average height of a male is the same as in Germany (a tad below 6 feet). 8-10 inches more are a lot. That's a full head. I mean a guy being 8-10 inches shorter than the average would also be noticeable, right? In the US, that would be a guy less than 5 feet tall...

Maybe I exaggerated a bit when I said "in awe". But Wagner would literally stand out due to his height, and that's what could make people think about him being a basketball player. Other than that I doubt that he is so popular in Germany right now that many would recognize him by his sheer looks.

Ftr, when I visited Iceland, I never saw anyone anywhere near my height (6’9”, which is the same as the Icelandic Mountain guy for reference) and the next place I go to where people don’t immediately comment on my height will be the first.

The height aspect of basketball is holding some nations (Philippines for example) back, but there really doesn’t exist any human population where NBA-big height is considered normal.


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[Doctor MJ]

Basketball in Europe will be a big thing only if the big markets(Britain, Germany, France) embrace it.
That won't happen.
You can't force someone to love a sport.
At this point it is what it is.

So just want to say that while you can’t force it, that doesn’t mean growth can’t happen still - and in fact a quick search seems pretty clearly to show growth in popularity in Germany.

I think a necessary component is probably home-nation stars. Basketball probably has no real chance of growing much in popularity in Britain until we see a British basketball superstar.

The presence of a Dirk-like figure still won’t necessarily be an immediate sensation back home, but I think it opens minds and doors and tends to lead leveling up in the future.

It will be interesting to see what Wemby does to French basketball in the long run.


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[schnakenpopanz]

See it like this. If Franz Wagner goes out celebrating the press would not care at all. There would not have been papparazzis following him. That's how low the popularity in Germany is. He could go unrecognized shopping or on holidays. The avg German would not know who he is. But he might be the top 5 athlete Germany has right now. Sad story.

[schnakenpopanz]

The discrepancy to football/soccer is too big. Even here in Turkey, they celebrate the team for its medal, but the hype is now over once the tournament is over.I guess the impact for the youth could be enormous. In contradiction the most successful team sport in Turkey is women's volleyball. All the girls are trying to play it know. It is by far the most popular sport for the gender group. Why? Because there are role models and success.

It's a two sided sword. Either you have a history like Serbia or you have a huge development system like France, Spain and now Germany.
A country like Greece or Turkey rely too much on their one in a million All NBA Talent like Giannis or Sengün.

[RookieStar]

The discrepancy to football/soccer is too big. Even here in Turkey, they celebrate the team for its medal, but the hype is now over once the tournament is over.I guess the impact for the youth could be enormous. In contradiction the most successful team sport in Turkey is women's volleyball. All the girls are trying to play it know. It is by far the most popular sport for the gender group. Why? Because there are role models and success.

It's a two sided sword. Either you have a history like Serbia or you have a huge development system like France, Spain and now Germany.
A country like Greece or Turkey rely too much on their one in a million All NBA Talent like Giannis or Sengün.

Are like... the youths of GER that rich that the prospect of earning tens of millions of dollars ( or if they are as good as Franz, hundreds of millions ) not incentive enough to lure them from the more popular sport?

Im differrnt, i love basketball, but if i found out that i actually have the potential to be good at say... figure skating, handball , speedwalking and can earn millions of dollars, im going michael jordan who??

[Mr Puddles]

The discrepancy to football/soccer is too big. Even here in Turkey, they celebrate the team for its medal, but the hype is now over once the tournament is over.I guess the impact for the youth could be enormous. In contradiction the most successful team sport in Turkey is women's volleyball. All the girls are trying to play it know. It is by far the most popular sport for the gender group. Why? Because there are role models and success.

It's a two sided sword. Either you have a history like Serbia or you have a huge development system like France, Spain and now Germany.
A country like Greece or Turkey rely too much on their one in a million All NBA Talent like Giannis or Sengün.

Are like... the youths of GER that rich that the prospect of earning tens of millions of dollars ( or if they are as good as Franz, hundreds of millions ) not incentive enough to lure them from the more popular sport?

Im differrnt, i love basketball, but if i found out that i actually have the potential to be good at say... figure skating, handball , speedwalking and can earn millions of dollars, im going michael jordan who??

Germans already have soccer/football, and one of the best programs in the world when it comes to that. I'd say the pathway to becoming wealthy kicking a ball is much easier in Germany, France, Spain than it is for dribbling a ball, eventhough those countries have been successful at basketball. In Western Europe, most of the sports money goes into soccer, with player development and scouting at a level far beyond basketball. Also, there are a lot of leagues spread across the world to earn good money in even for run of the mill soccer players.

[basketballRob]

6'10 is really rare everywhere in the world. How many people of that height do you actually know?

Yes, American culture. Let's talk about that again when Wagner gets paid by Germans... Would you start to watch Bollywood films because a compatriot of yours gets paid more in India than Hollywood actors?

By the way, have you guys seen Franz next to Giannis during the celebration? They are more or less the same height.

To paraphrase Brian Scalabrine here: Franz is closer to Wemby in height than he is to Dennis Schröder.

We Magic realgmers already know Franz is 6'11.

As I mentioned before, we got posters since the Dwight era go up to our players and see for themselves their true height. In Franz case, I forgot which poster but he went up to Franz, Paolo and Moe in the Starbucks line to chat them up. He said Franz was taller than 6'10 Paolo and that Moe was taller than Franz.

I think he's around 6'8.75" w/o shoes. Da Silva is 6'8.25" w/o shoe's.

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[KG Leonard]

Basketball is a simple game. Ten men chase a ball for 40 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.

As euro Football fan who grew up hearing that famous qoute about Germany when they dominated England others in Euros and World cups, this is a top tier reference, comment.

[lambchop]

Basketball in Europe will be a big thing only if the big markets(Britain, Germany, France) embrace it.
That won't happen.
You can't force someone to love a sport.
At this point it is what it is.

So just want to say that while you can’t force it, that doesn’t mean growth can’t happen still - and in fact a quick search seems pretty clearly to show growth in popularity in Germany.

I

Nothing points to that. There's a "data rich analysis" article on Google that claims that the popularity has increased, but it's basing those observations on fallacies.

1. Germany is more successful even at the youth level -> This points to the game being more popular.

The latter isn't true. The German basketball federation simply forces the big teams to invest in their youth departments or pay hefty fines. In addition, half of their roster has to consist of Germans. As a result, young players eventually become pros by default because teams absolutely need 2 to 3 of them to be rotation pieces.

2. The 2023 world cup final drew record viewership in Germany -> Basketball is more popular than ever there now.

Germany made the world cup final for the first time ever in 2023. So, what is this viewership stat even being compared to? Other finals that Germany didn't participate in? Captivating stuff.
I don't know who even writes these bogus articles. On top of that, AI bases its info on that inherently flawed article and then users think it's legit.

Therefore, no, the game isn't more popular now. But we're still vastly more successful. The system seems to be working just fine.

[UcanUwill]

See it like this. If Franz Wagner goes out celebrating the press would not care at all. There would not have been papparazzis following him. That's how low the popularity in Germany is. He could go unrecognized shopping or on holidays. The avg German would not know who he is. But he might be the top 5 athlete Germany has right now. Sad story.

That is so sad to hear, Over here, basketball stars are biggest celebrities.

Reminds me of contrast between Beijing and London Olympics. During opening ceremony in Beijing, they showed Kobe and other team USA stars on screen, and I remember the entire stadium erupted. Same happened 4 years later in London, but the crowd was entirely silent, no one recognized who these guys were.

[Doctor MJ]

Basketball in Europe will be a big thing only if the big markets(Britain, Germany, France) embrace it.
That won't happen.
You can't force someone to love a sport.
At this point it is what it is.

So just want to say that while you can’t force it, that doesn’t mean growth can’t happen still - and in fact a quick search seems pretty clearly to show growth in popularity in Germany.

I

Nothing points to that. There's a "data rich analysis" article on Google that claims that the popularity has increased, but it's basing those observations on fallacies.

1. Germany is more successful even at the youth level -> This points to the game being more popular.

The latter isn't true. The German basketball federation simply forces the big teams to invest in their youth departments or pay hefty fines. In addition, half of their roster has to consist of Germans. As a result, young players eventually become pros by default because teams absolutely need 2 to 3 of them to be rotation pieces.

2. The 2023 world cup final drew record viewership in Germany -> Basketball is more popular than ever there now.

Germany made the world cup final for the first time ever in 2023. So, what is this viewership stat even being compared to? Other finals that Germany didn't participate in? Captivating stuff.
I don't know who even writes these bogus articles. On top of that, AI bases its info on that inherently flawed article and then users think it's legit.

Therefore, no, the game isn't more popular now. But we're still vastly more successful. The system seems to be working just fine.

Seems pretty clear that Bundesliga revenue keeps increasing at a good clip based on other sources. Do you disagree with that assessment?

[Bergmaniac]

The discrepancy to football/soccer is too big. Even here in Turkey, they celebrate the team for its medal, but the hype is now over once the tournament is over.I guess the impact for the youth could be enormous. In contradiction the most successful team sport in Turkey is women's volleyball. All the girls are trying to play it know. It is by far the most popular sport for the gender group. Why? Because there are role models and success.

It's a two sided sword. Either you have a history like Serbia or you have a huge development system like France, Spain and now Germany.
A country like Greece or Turkey rely too much on their one in a million All NBA Talent like Giannis or Sengün.

Are like... the youths of GER that rich that the prospect of earning tens of millions of dollars ( or if they are as good as Franz, hundreds of millions ) not incentive enough to lure them from the more popular sport?

Im differrnt, i love basketball, but if i found out that i actually have the potential to be good at say... figure skating, handball , speedwalking and can earn millions of dollars, im going michael jordan who??

Soccer is the obvious rational choice for a prospective pro athlete if he cares primarily about money and isn't a complete outlier on the plus side in terms of height. Anyone below 6'4" (which include over 98% of the male population of Germany) has a much higher chance of becoming a millionaire playing soccer than basketball. The NBA salaries are the best in pro team sports, but making the roster of an NBA team is extremely hard, especially if you are not freakishly tall. Top soccer clubs in Europe offer much higher salaries than Euroleague teams, they have bigger rosters and you can be a superstar and earn tens of millions per year while being below average height.

[lambchop]

So just want to say that while you can’t force it, that doesn’t mean growth can’t happen still - and in fact a quick search seems pretty clearly to show growth in popularity in Germany.

I

Nothing points to that. There's a "data rich analysis" article on Google that claims that the popularity has increased, but it's basing those observations on fallacies.

1. Germany is more successful even at the youth level -> This points to the game being more popular.

The latter isn't true. The German basketball federation simply forces the big teams to invest in their youth departments or pay hefty fines. In addition, half of their roster has to consist of Germans. As a result, young players eventually become pros by default because teams absolutely need 2 to 3 of them to be rotation pieces.

2. The 2023 world cup final drew record viewership in Germany -> Basketball is more popular than ever there now.

Germany made the world cup final for the first time ever in 2023. So, what is this viewership stat even being compared to? Other finals that Germany didn't participate in? Captivating stuff.
I don't know who even writes these bogus articles. On top of that, AI bases its info on that inherently flawed article and then users think it's legit.

Therefore, no, the game isn't more popular now. But we're still vastly more successful. The system seems to be working just fine.

Seems pretty clear that Bundesliga revenue keeps increasing at a good clip based on other sources. Do you disagree with that assessment?

Agreed, but it gets a bit tricky when we take a closer look at the numbers.

According to the official Bundesliga report found here: https://cms.easycredit-bbl.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/easyCreditBBL_Ligareport_2023_24.pdf , the overall revenue increased. The Bundesliga itself has an article confirming that the total revenue surpassed pre-pandemic 2018/2019 levels.

However, when comparing the 2023/24 and 2022/2023 revenues, two things stand out.

1. Revenue generated through sponsorship deals increased from 84.3 to 92.3 million euros.

2. Revenue generated through ticket sales increased from 25.6 to a whopping 43 million euros. But overall attendance only increased by 6.8% aka two hundred fans per game. Thus, there's legitimate reason to believe that impressive additional ticket revenue was simply achieved by massively increasing the ticket prices.

That said, yes, the German Bundesliga has seen incremental growth. They're also much stricter about individual teams' budgets, funding and sponsorship deals. Gone are the days of teams going bankrupt mid season and then not being able to continue playing.

[Doctor MJ]

Nothing points to that. There's a "data rich analysis" article on Google that claims that the popularity has increased, but it's basing those observations on fallacies.

1. Germany is more successful even at the youth level -> This points to the game being more popular.

The latter isn't true. The German basketball federation simply forces the big teams to invest in their youth departments or pay hefty fines. In addition, half of their roster has to consist of Germans. As a result, young players eventually become pros by default because teams absolutely need 2 to 3 of them to be rotation pieces.

2. The 2023 world cup final drew record viewership in Germany -> Basketball is more popular than ever there now.

Germany made the world cup final for the first time ever in 2023. So, what is this viewership stat even being compared to? Other finals that Germany didn't participate in? Captivating stuff.
I don't know who even writes these bogus articles. On top of that, AI bases its info on that inherently flawed article and then users think it's legit.

Therefore, no, the game isn't more popular now. But we're still vastly more successful. The system seems to be working just fine.

Seems pretty clear that Bundesliga revenue keeps increasing at a good clip based on other sources. Do you disagree with that assessment?

Agreed, but it gets a bit tricky when we take a closer look at the numbers.

According to the official Bundesliga report found here: https://cms.easycredit-bbl.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/easyCreditBBL_Ligareport_2023_24.pdf , the overall revenue increased. The Bundesliga itself has an article confirming that the total revenue surpassed pre-pandemic 2018/2019 levels.

However, when comparing the 2023/24 and 2022/2023 revenues, two things stand out.

1. Revenue generated through sponsorship deals increased from 84.3 to 92.3 million euros.

2. Revenue generated through ticket sales increased from 25.6 to a whopping 43 million euros. But overall attendance only increased by 6.8% aka two hundred fans per game. Thus, there's legitimate reason to believe that impressive additional ticket revenue was simply achieved by massively increasing the ticket prices.

That said, yes, the German Bundesliga has seen incremental growth. They're also much stricter about individual teams' budgets, funding and sponsorship deals. Gone are the days of teams going bankrupt mid season and then not being able to continue playing.

Appreciate the post where we come together a bit.

I'd acknowledge that revenue-based metrics can be the product of inflation, but I'm not sure if we're going to find a more objective measure to go by.

[nbaguy1]

Nothing points to that. There's a "data rich analysis" article on Google that claims that the popularity has increased, but it's basing those observations on fallacies.

1. Germany is more successful even at the youth level -> This points to the game being more popular.

The latter isn't true. The German basketball federation simply forces the big teams to invest in their youth departments or pay hefty fines. In addition, half of their roster has to consist of Germans. As a result, young players eventually become pros by default because teams absolutely need 2 to 3 of them to be rotation pieces.

2. The 2023 world cup final drew record viewership in Germany -> Basketball is more popular than ever there now.

Germany made the world cup final for the first time ever in 2023. So, what is this viewership stat even being compared to? Other finals that Germany didn't participate in? Captivating stuff.
I don't know who even writes these bogus articles. On top of that, AI bases its info on that inherently flawed article and then users think it's legit.

Therefore, no, the game isn't more popular now. But we're still vastly more successful. The system seems to be working just fine.

Seems pretty clear that Bundesliga revenue keeps increasing at a good clip based on other sources. Do you disagree with that assessment?

Agreed, but it gets a bit tricky when we take a closer look at the numbers.

According to the official Bundesliga report found here: https://cms.easycredit-bbl.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/easyCreditBBL_Ligareport_2023_24.pdf , the overall revenue increased. The Bundesliga itself has an article confirming that the total revenue surpassed pre-pandemic 2018/2019 levels.

However, when comparing the 2023/24 and 2022/2023 revenues, two things stand out.

1. Revenue generated through sponsorship deals increased from 84.3 to 92.3 million euros.

2. Revenue generated through ticket sales increased from 25.6 to a whopping 43 million euros. But overall attendance only increased by 6.8% aka two hundred fans per game. Thus, there's legitimate reason to believe that impressive additional ticket revenue was simply achieved by massively increasing the ticket prices.

That said, yes, the German Bundesliga has seen incremental growth. They're also much stricter about individual teams' budgets, funding and sponsorship deals. Gone are the days of teams going bankrupt mid season and then not being able to continue playing.

Also Schröder and Rubio where really the only small guy Euro PG's drafted at a young age. Its not a path really. USA has plenty of normal height ppl who can play.

[Doctor MJ]

Also Schröder and Rubio where really the only small guy Euro PG's drafted at a young age. Its not a path really. USA has plenty of normal height ppl who can play.

An interesting point to consider.

In general, scouting discovery of smalls is harder than for bigs because they don't stand out immediately the same way, and as such it's typically bigs who end up coming from overseas to join the NBA.

However, it's not like there aren't extreme outliers among the smalls to be found that make international scouting worthwhile for them. The case of Steve Nash is, I think, particularly significant because he was an international who only made it to the NBA because he was extremely aggressive sending out videos to American college coaches. So that's a guy the NBA could have easily missed out on, and he was a native English speaker who literally lived a stone's throw away from the US.

NBA scouts should be thinking about how they can identify Nash-like outliers anywhere in the world, and while it's clear why it's hard to do so, that's also the point. NBA scouting needs to get much, much better at identifying levels of BBIQ, and saying "It's impossible" just doesn't work for me given that we can all see it. The scouts of course can see it better than us generally and I'm not saying otherwise, but there's clearly a difference between being able to identify a clever play and being able to actually tell the difference between a Nash-level passer from, say, a D'Angelo Russell-level passer (referencing him because he was hyped as a generational passer going into the 2015 draft, and not only was he nothing even close to that, there was a generational passer - Jokic - in that draft, and so front offices need to recognize both how to identify the very tippy top guys as tippy top, and no confuse the DLos of the world for tippy top simply because he has some cool passing hightlights).

[RookieStar]

Also Schröder and Rubio where really the only small guy Euro PG's drafted at a young age. Its not a path really. USA has plenty of normal height ppl who can play.

An interesting point to consider.

In general, scouting discovery of smalls is harder than for bigs because they don't stand out immediately the same way, and as such it's typically bigs who end up coming from overseas to join the NBA.

However, it's not like there aren't extreme outliers among the smalls to be found that make international scouting worthwhile for them. The case of Steve Nash is, I think, particularly significant because he was an international who only made it to the NBA because he was extremely aggressive sending out videos to American college coaches. So that's a guy the NBA could have easily missed out on, and he was a native English speaker who literally lived a stone's throw away from the US.

NBA scouts should be thinking about how they can identify Nash-like outliers anywhere in the world, and while it's clear why it's hard to do so, that's also the point. NBA scouting needs to get much, much better at identifying levels of BBIQ, and saying "It's impossible" just doesn't work for me given that we can all see it. The scouts of course can see it better than us generally and I'm not saying otherwise, but there's clearly a difference between being able to identify a clever play and being able to actually tell the difference between a Nash-level passer from, say, a D'Angelo Russell-level passer (referencing him because he was hyped as a generational passer going into the 2015 draft, and not only was he nothing even close to that, there was a generational passer - Jokic - in that draft, and so front offices need to recognize both how to identify the very tippy top guys as tippy top, and no confuse the DLos of the world for tippy top simply because he has some cool passing hightlights).

You would think that with all these international success of the nba ( GA Luka Franz Jokic just to name a few ) NBA teams would invest heavily in the scouts in Europe...