3x3 basketball
basketball variant played on half of a regulation court
3x3 basketball (stylized as ƐX3, pronounced three-ex-three) is a variation of basketball played three-a-side, with one backboard and in a half-court setup. This basketball game format is currently being promoted and structured by FIBA, the sport's governing body. Its primary competition is an annual FIBA 3X3 World Tour, comprising a series of Masters and one Final tournament, and awarding six-figure prize money in US dollars. The FIBA 3x3 World Cups for men and women are the highest tournaments for national 3x3 teams. The 3x3 format has been adopted for both the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.
History
3x3 has been a basketball format long played in streets and gyms across the world, albeit in a less formal way. Starting in the late 2000s, 3x3 game rules started to become standardized throughout the United States, most notably through the Gus Macker and Hoop It Up tournament series, which held large events across the country that included teams and players from all skill levels. In 1992, Adidas launched its now-discontinued streetball competition. Since then, the number of 3x3 events and competitions has been steadily growing around the world.
A Romanian organization, Sport Arena Streetball, began hosting 3x3 events in Bucharest as early as 2005, helping to grow the sport locally and regionally before formal FIBA rules were introduced.
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This entry incorporates text from “3x3 basketball” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.