The “Stories of Guangdong” on and off the Court at the Guangdong Basketball Association

GUANGZHOU, China, March 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — “To understand Chinese basketball, one must look to Guangdong.” This saying has long circulated widely within China’s basketball community. On March 21, the inaugural 2026 Guangdong Provincial City Basketball Association (Guangdong B.A.) tipped off at the Tianhe Sports Center Gymnasium in Guangzhou, where the Zhongshan team defeated the Guangzhou team to claim the opening win. Off the court, fans rushed to secure tickets the moment they were released, underscoring the enduring passion Guangdong locals have for the sport.

Historical records show that as early as the late Qing dynasty (1644–1912), female university students in Guangdong were already playing basketball. During the Republic of China era (1912–1949), schools such as Pui Ching and Pui Ying in Guangzhou became key drivers of the sport’s development. From games on dirt courts to the Guangdong Tigers team—the CBA’s eleven-time champions—and now to the Guangdong B.A., the province’s basketball journey has produced countless defining moments, gradually embedding itself in both urban and rural life as part of Guangdong’s shared memory and cultural identity. Ma Shuo, deputy director of the Institute of Cultural Industries at the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, noted: “The Guangdong B.A. is not a flash-in-the-pan, traffic-driven event. It is a new IP that has grown organically from Guangdong’s long-standing sporting traditions, broad grassroots base, and strong sense of urban identity.”

In the early 20th century, shortly after basketball was introduced to Guangdong, it spread rapidly across both cities and the countryside. Shaxi Town in Zhongshan won the national “Village B.A.” championship in both 2023 and 2024. Guangzhou also nurtured Li Shaofen, one of the first generation of women’s national basketball players in New China, who helped Guangdong secure the women’s title at the inaugural National Games. Her chance connection with Academician Zhong Nanshan at the Games has since become a well-known story in sports circles. In Dongguan, the country’s first privately run professional basketball club, Guangdong Hongyuan, was established, along with the first township-level arena built to CBA standards. At the inaugural National “Harvest Cup” Farmers’ Basketball Tournament in 1984, the Changping men’s team from Dongguan and the Jun’an women’s team from Shunde swept the men’s and women’s titles, offering many spectators a vivid glimpse of the spirit and vitality of people in regions at the forefront of reform and opening-up through these grassroots players.

This edition of the Guangdong B.A. explicitly bars professional players, giving “slipper-court kings” and “grassroots stars” from across the province a chance to take center stage—one of the tournament’s key draws. According to Du Feng, president of the Guangdong Basketball Association, participants range in age from 16 to 40.

Ma Shuo noted, “A sporting event can become a city’s reception hall, a new engine for consumption, and a window for cultural display, with diverse traditions—from Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, and hometowns of overseas Chinese—naturally woven into the event.” This approach allows “watching a game” to extend naturally into “exploring a city.”

The Guangdong B.A. will feature 125 games and run through August. The Guangdong Football Super League will kick off in late April, with 123 matches scheduled on weekends through around October. During both competitions, Guangdong plans to roll out dining vouchers and host “Guangdong Products for the World” promotional events, aiming to ignite both the vibrancy of city life and the excitement of the arenas.

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