The International Basketball Federation (FIBA), which supports the participation of more women in all fields of basketball, has published a comprehensive survey that provides an overview of the current status of women’s basketball.
The core survey submitted to FIBA’s 213 national federation members is intended to enable FIBA to measure and assess the status of women’s basketball on a global scale, in order to help adapt its information and strategic implementation plans.
The purpose of FIBA; to increase the number of women playing, employing and managing, to increase the number of fans of women’s basketball and to ensure that more women take part in the management of the FIBA family.
At its 2019 congress, FIBA set eight strategic goals for the 2019-2027 cycle. As part of FIBA’s Women in Basketball strategy priority, FIBA’s regional offices have released the Women in Basketball Survey Report 2020, which focuses on updates on key activities and fact sheets detailing details for each national federation, as well as how its results will feed into the goals of the Women in Basketball strategy.
Survey; It included 130 questions covering topics ranging from players and national teams, clubs and local competitions to management, communication, marketing and operational structures. The online survey was sent to all national federations in May 2020 and data collection was completed by 172 members in November 2020. The data on the competitions and the status of the national federation were on the 2019/20 season before the COVID pandemic.
Some key points from the report are as follows:
83% of national federations have an A women’s national team
The popularity of 3×3 basketball is growing at an incredible rate, with 23 countries represented in 15 different locations around the world in the first season of the FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series in 2019.
· In 2019, 8.1 million basketball fans followed FIBA’s women’s events on their website
· The USA ranks first in the ranking with 1.8 million licensed female basketball players registered by their national federations, followed by Japan, France, Spain, Australia and Russia.
According to the information in the report; There are 13 thousand 407 registered licensed female basketball players in Turkey, 12 thousand 675 under the age of 18 and 732 above the age of 18. Ranking 7th in the A Team category and 24th in the junior age groups in the FIBA Women’s World Rankings, Turkey has a total of 32 female referees, including 30 senior female coaches and 3 FIBA referees at the national teams level. While there are no women among the 23 Board members of the Turkish Basketball Federation (TBF), Turkey’s national federation, 70 of the 150 employees in TBF are women.
FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis said: “FIBA is determined to promote gender equality in basketball and to use the potential of sport to promote equality in the broadest sense. Therefore, I welcome this report as it adds invaluable data to one of FIBA’s strategic priorities. We are confident that this work will lead to the implementation of concrete actions in the basketball community at the national and global level.”
The published survey report details the current situation and will be used to develop future initiatives to further enhance the role of women at all levels of sport.
