NYBO national finals open in Tianjin with record 6,216 players

(ECNS) -- The 2025-2026 National Youth Basketball Open (NYBO) national finals opened Sunday at the National Convention and Exhibition Center in Tianjin, drawing a record 6,216 young players from 688 teams. The tournament runs through July 25.

This year’s finals feature a U14 international invitational tournament for the first time, with teams from the United States, Canada, Russia and Singapore, as well as a European select team. A 3x3 competition has also been added to the finals for the first time.

Players compete in elite and open divisions, while a U10 girls’ category has been introduced alongside the existing U12 division, giving younger girls more opportunities to compete.

Over the past nine years, NYBO has expanded to 200 competition areas across China and staged more than 140,000 games involving nearly 500,000 young players, according to the organizers.

(By Intern Yang Hongran, Zhang Dongfang)