New kid on the block: 3x3 basketball's path from the streets to Olympic sensation

24 July 2021. Tokyo, Japan.

It’s about 11 pm local time, and day one of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is coming to an end. The athletes from Belgium and Japan make their way off the court at Aomi Urban Sports Park, drenched in sweat; one or two sport a few scratches and the odd bruise - the scars of a battle well fought.

Only these marks weren’t due to a tough football match, or a brutally punishing rugby sevens game. No, these lumps came from the day’s final event from a brand new addition to the Olympic programme: 3x3 basketball.

What exactly is 3x3 basketball?

Bumps, bruises and the odd bit of blood aren’t uncommon in a regular game of basketball, but 3X3 is a different beast entirely. This is a game from the streets, symbolised by non-stop action, thumping music, and a level of physicality that would shock those who tuned in to watch 3X3 expecting something more akin to the traditional five-on-five game. And that’s sort of the point, as the International Basketball Federation’s (FIBA) Managing Director of 3x3 Alex Sanchez tells Olympics.com.

“3x3 is a different experience [to five-on-five basketball]. To be successful in this discipline, you need to have a certain level of experience with 3x3.

"Even former NBA and EuroLeague players that came to events thinking they were going to beat everybody haven’t been able to get out of the pool phase. And someone will ask them, ‘what happened?’, and they’ll say, ‘I didn’t know where the ball was!’ or ‘I ran out of breath!’. 3x3 is a continuous sprint and completely different game to full-court basketball. It’s faster, there are fewer tactics, and the beauty of 3x3 is that it’s simple.”

Simplicity, as is so often the case, is a marker for success - especially in sports. The game of traditional basketball, for example, involves 10 players on a court, two baskets, and one ball. Sure, one can get bogged down in the fine details of the rules and tactics of the game, but the concept is straightforward: the team that scores the most points wins. As a result, basketball has become one of the most popular sports in the world, with FIBA estimating a global participation figure of 450 million as of 2021, while the top men’s professional league, the NBA, generates the most views and engagements - 29.4 billion video views - of any professional sports league on social media.

3x3 is a simplified version of full-court basketball, involving one basket, six players (three on each team) and one ball. And while Sanchez readily admits that 3X3 will never match the engagement numbers of the NBA, it is telling that a sport that only saw its international debut in 2007 has already become an Olympic discipline, with an astounding surge in social engagement from 1 million in 2012 to 536 million in 2022.

“Basketball is a popular sport in general, and 3x3 is a discipline of basketball. But I think the most important thing is 3x3 is a product that fits the current taste and lifestyle of the world, which is a product that is simple to understand, short, natural and entertaining.

“We are one of the very few sports that has non-stop music during competition. We have put a lot of emphasis on the entertainment factor in 3x3 - the rules are designed to make the game simple and entertaining.

“We also believe that our whole competition format, and the fact that we use a half-court [as opposed to a full court] makes 3x3 very social media friendly. We have this main camera angle that gives an overview of what happens on the court with a single shot, which means it’s easy to watch on a mobile device or on a small screen compared to other sports.”

The birth of 3x3

The origins of 3x3 basketball can’t be traced to an exact date, as this format of basketball has long been played in streets and gyms across the world. However, in the late 2000s the Gus Macker 3-on-3 and Hoop It Up basketball tournaments in the United States contributed to the standardisation of 3x3 game rules.

In 2007, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved the creation of a youth version of the Olympic Games, and began lobbying international sports federations for new disciplines that could feature at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in 2010 — and FIBA had just the thing to present.

“The IOC wanted to use the Youth Olympic Games to test and explore new disciplines that would appeal to a younger audience and could be successful in the future in order to integrate them into the Olympic program at a later stage,” says Sanchez.

“So when they [the IOC] asked FIBA to come up with a new discipline, FIBA said, ‘hey, we have this in the cupboard. Why don’t we try to polish it and see if there’s something there?’”

FIBA first tested the 3x3 format at the 2007 Asian Indoor Games in Macau, and held further test events the following year before 3x3 made its international debut at the 2009 Asian Youth Games.

“We were developing 3x3 in parallel with the YOG,” says Sanchez. “We were trying to figure out what 3x3 was, what we could do with it and if there was enough meat to make it a standalone discipline with Olympic aspirations. So we developed a white paper, and in 2010 we decided to go for it [and submit 3X3 as a discipline for the YOG].”

The IOC accepted FIBA’s proposal of 3x3 basketball for the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore, where the discipline made its worldwide competitive debut with 20 teams in both boys' and girls' categories.

Now the question became: could 3x3 become an Olympic discipline?

3x3's path to the Olympic Games

“The proposal we submitted [to the IOC] showed there was a business case to make 3x3 an Olympic discipline, as well as a standalone, self-sustainable discipline with athletes around the world. But the IOC wanted to know if 3x3 had a dedicated competition, with athletes regularly competing in the discipline, in order to consider 3X3 for the Games. So, based on these requirements, we launched the 3x3 World Tour in 2012.”

The 3x3 World Tour is an international tour of men's professional teams representing cities; after launching in 2012 with six events, it has since grown to 18 competitions worldwide. FIBA also launched the 3x3 World Cup the same year in Athens, before including the Challengers (qualifying tournaments for the World Tour) in 2018 and a women’s series on the professional circuit in 2019. Combined, 3X3 will stage 70 events between men’s and women’s professional competitions this year, with a total prize pot of $5 million - not to mention the upcoming World Cup in Vienna from 30 May to 4 June and Asia Cup in Singapore from 29 March to 2 April.

Clearly, 3x3 is a discipline that is growing exceptionally fast: FIBA states it is now the largest urban team sport in the world. The IOC were well aware of the sport’s potential following its success at the Youth Olympic Games in 2010 and 2014, and in 2017 3x3 was formally added to the Olympic programme for the upcoming Games in Tokyo (due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were held in 2021).

Despite the Games going ahead with no spectators due to COVID-19 restrictions, 3X3 enjoyed a successful Olympic debut, and even saw the participation of current and former professional full-court basketball players: the USA’s four-player group that won women’s gold in Tokyo was entirely made up of current WNBA players, including 2022 champion Kelsey Plum and 2017 Rookie of the Year Allisha Gray.

3x3 at Paris 2024 and beyond

With 3x3 expanding to new heights, it should come as no surprise that the discipline will return to the Olympic programme for Paris 2024, where it will take place on the iconic Place de la Concorde in the heart of the French capital.

“I think [3x3] is starting to reach maturity in terms of the number of tournaments we have every year,” Sanchez says. “However, what we have been doing in the last year is increase the quality of those tournaments.

“If you compare the tournaments we held five or six years ago to the ones we have now, you’ll notice we have bigger bleachers, more entertainment, and the players are better. So what is the future beyond Paris [2024]? The future is reaching maturity in the number of tournaments we have, the ‘weight’ of each tournament, and to continue increasing prize money so we can compete with the top basketball leagues in Europe."

Based on how quickly 3x3 has grown in a little over a decade, there's no doubt this young discipline of basketball will soon be brushing elbows with its older sibling - and that's a feeling it knows all too well.