On the 9th, Shunde, Foshan, the 2024 National U14 Youth Basketball League Finals came to an end, and Dongguan One Plus One Club defeated Mingde Huaxing 96:75 and lifted the trophy for the first place in the game in front of the home fans in Guangdong.
In the 40 minutes of high-level competition, the sun-like energy of young talents continued to burst out in the scramble, and beyond the timer, the path opened by ANTA and the Chinese Basketball Association may have profound and long-term significance for the development of the entire Chinese youth basketball.
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Text / Li Jiajun
Editor / Guo Yang
A basketball game that is more than just a win or a loser
"Is it faster than them?"
At about 20:40, the game was almost an hour over, Mingde Huaxing Middle School, which had just suffered a big defeat, under the leadership of the head coach, stood at the door of the Jun'an Basketball Stadium to review the game.
They definitely deserve the respect of their opponents and fans alike. Although One Plus One relied on well-trained fast attack counterattacks to consume their physical strength and widen the point difference throughout the game, before the timer went to zero, Matilda never had a relaxed look in the eyes of the coach and players, and the resilience reflected in the waves of counterattacks also forced One Plus One to call a timeout repeatedly.
However, the frustration after the defeat is inevitable, after all, the opportunity to compete for a national championship does not come every day. As Xu Jicheng, vice chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, who was present at the ceremony, said, rich competition experience is a necessary process on the road to growth, and the ultimate goal is to enable young people to develop into all-round players with comprehensive quality in the training, and lay the foundation for a higher stage.
If you have greater ambitions in your heart, there will be no losers on the road to growth.
Before the start of the game, Xu Jicheng also trotted all the way to the center of the court and proposed a ten-year vision to the young players on the scene: "Ten years later, in 2035, where are you? Can you stand on the professional stage and even wear the five-star red flag to represent the country?"
2035 is the year of the completion of the strategy of becoming a sports power, and the Basketball World Cup and the Olympic Games will also be launched one after another. Therefore, during this period, for Chinese basketball, which is in dire need of faith support, there is nothing more gratifying than seeing young talent continue to shine. With the increasing attention and attention from all walks of life, we have been able to feel a lot of hope and progress in such a challenging and time-precipitating long-term task as the construction of the tower foundation. The scale and popularity of the National U14 Youth Basketball League are expanding year by year, which is one of the most representative manifestations.
As the youngest age group in junior U-Series basketball, the annual U14 League brings together talent from all over the country. In this competition, a total of 75 teams and 1,200 players participated in the men's and women's divisions, and a total of 344 matches spanned several months, providing players with practical opportunities and attracting the attention of fans from all over the world.
A parent who came to watch the finals told Krypton that because the two children who are in elementary school are very eager for big games, they will take them to watch most of the U-series games held in Guangdong Province, cheering for the players, and allowing their children to take the lead in adapting to the atmosphere of regular basketball games.
Whether it is the expanding scale or the gradually rising attention in the fan circle, this is an important manifestation of the development of youth basketball, but in order to maintain such momentum and inertia in the long-term process, it is also inseparable from the support of industry forces.
Before the start of the competition, the event partner release ceremony was held at the scene. With the exchange of jerseys with the words "ANTA" and "CYBL", ANTA officially became a strategic partner of the National U14 Youth Basketball League.
As mentioned earlier, the U14 category is a crucial step for a player to progress from small basketball to standard basketball, which means that he has started a new journey of competition and pursued higher basketball dreams. Therefore, when ANTA Kids and the tournament team take "growth starts here" as their core concept, their determination to accompany and protect the young players at every step of their growth has also been demonstrated at all levels of cooperation.
During the critical period of rising balls, ANTA KIDS "customized" talents
According to the "China Basketball Development Report", the general basketball population in China is about 125 million, of which the proportion of young people aged 6-17 is the first of all ball games. According to the statistics of the "2023 Youth Event Data Report" released by Aobang Evaluation, among the 3,312 youth sports events held across the country last year, the number of basketball games also ranked second among all events.
The participation and attention of the public to youth basketball has led to the rapid development of the entire field, giving birth to a gradually rich and sound competition ecology, and more and more new generation basketball fans can be exposed to a variety of official games at a very young age and cultivate the correct concept of basketball rules. The huge volume and diversified needs of the market also bring higher standards and responsibilities to practitioners.
For adults, professional equipment such as sneakers often requires higher strength adaptability and a certain degree of durability, while for teenagers with rapid physical development, injuries caused by improper protection are easy to leave lifelong regrets. Therefore, how to create the most suitable equipment for them through more delicate concepts and designs is a more difficult and responsible science.
At the launch ceremony of the strategic partners, ANTA KIDS' new basketball shoe "Green Maniac" was also unveiled on the court. This shoe is a new exclusive sneaker created by ANTA KIDS for the U Series of the National Youth Basketball League, and all the design and development are based on the actual performance of youth basketball. It can be felt that for ANTA KIDS, who has taken the initiative to take on this responsibility, the creation of youth equipment is not only to launch small-sized sneakers, but also to treat it as a task with independent logic.
This is the most representative youth attitude of basketball, and it is also the name that best fits the U-series league. Coach Song Xiaobo, a member of the China Basketball Hall of Fame and former captain of the Chinese women's basketball team, told Krypton: "It is a very good thing for companies like Anta to support youth basketball and build equipment for them, which can help children develop good sports habits early."
Around the age of 14 is a critical period for players to develop their basic skills and find their positioning. Through innovation and optimization in technology, functionality and protection, ANTA Kids enables young players to have more choices that suit them, and respond to every step of the way in the process of running towards the highest goal in their hearts.
"When I was younger, my feet were big, but I was very picky, and it was difficult to buy the right shoes, so I envy them that they can have their own exclusive equipment now." After being surrounded by the small fans in the audience to ask for autographs, Lai Yiye, a star basketball expert who came to interact and present the award, told Krypton.
Just like the influence of grassroots basketball in the new era, the deeper companionship of ANTA and ANTA children will further consolidate the recognition of its brand among young people and play an escort role in their growth at every stage.
Accompanying every stage of growth, ANTA makes every step of the effort worthwhile
The cooperation with the National U14 Youth Basketball League represents another deepening of ANTA's work in building a youth basketball tournament system, but in fact, ANTA Group has long been present in basketball competitions of multiple age groups. Among them, the most notable is ANTA's return to the CUBAL race.
On February 24, Beijing time, ANTA officially signed a contract with the CUBAL China University Basketball League, becoming the official top partner. CEO Xu Yang said at the press conference: "We are definitely not just an equipment sponsor, we will do our best."
Last year, the finals between Guanggong and Tsinghua University were still vivid, and the showdown between Chen Guohao and Zou Yang became a topic of discussion among many fans online and offline at that time, which was a victory for CUBAL and a victory for Chinese campus basketball. According to Krypton, after the cooperation between the two parties, ANTA has created an exclusive "people, goods, and venues" for the campus crowd, deeply linked with the student groups represented by more than 1,300 college teams of CUBAL, and truly participated in the operation of the competition through the planning of campus managers and workplace stars, and finally fed back the gains and feedback to its own product development and marketing, forming a benign closed loop.
In addition to supporting and sponsoring golfers, ANTA KIDS, a subsidiary of ANTA, as a leading brand in the children's sports industry, has held hundreds of basketball tournaments in dozens of cities across the country in the past few years, building a channel for children who love basketball to participate in high-level competitions.
The ANTA Children's Basketball Camp '23 Summer Elite League was officially unveiled in May last year, not only providing a rare opportunity for the children to compete, but also inviting the "Teaching Director" Xiao Jingteng, former women's basketball player Sui Feifei, as well as celebrities Liu Shouyuan and Chen Yifan to participate in the event to stimulate the children's love to the greatest extent.
Whether it is organizing the tournament in person or sponsoring it, ANTA always seems to maintain a deep and detailed participation in basketball events, and this persistence is also reflected in this cooperation with the U14.
"We will join hands with the Chinese Basketball Association to give full play to our respective advantages and fully support the development of youth basketball from multiple dimensions such as event operation, player training, talent selection, and professional products." Wan Bin, President of ANTA Kids, said.
This cooperation is the beginning of ANTA and the Chinese Basketball Association in promoting the development of youth basketball leagues and promoting children to a broad competitive platform. In addition to continuing to gain insight into the needs of the new generation of basketball and providing players with a richer and more professional basketball product matrix, in the next five years, the two parties will also build the most comprehensive and systematic youth basketball competition platform for the new generation of basketball under the age of 14 in China around the National U14 Youth Basketball League.
In fact, ANTA's ability to enhance the ecology of basketball events was demonstrated in the professional arena as early as 20 years ago. "At the beginning of the millennium, the CBA league was able to implement professional reform in the early stage, which was inseparable from ANTA's full support." Xu Jicheng said to Kryptonite.
Therefore, when ANTA and its subsidiary, ANTA Kids, devote more energy and energy to the youth group and the competition arena they aspire to, we believe that the competition ecology and overall development of China's youth basketball will be able to move forward solidly and rapidly.
Maybe it's really like Xu Jicheng said, 10 years later, a young player standing on the court today will put on the national team jersey and play for the five-star red flag, maybe Chinese basketball can stand on the podium of the Olympic Games. What we hope to see is that there is no longer a "golden generation" and a "diamond generation" in Chinese basketball, and there will be batches of outstanding young players rushing up from the mature youth system.
And when people turn the 10-year history of China's youth basketball development forward, more industry forces will join ANTA and become an indispensable role in it, accompanying young talents to "become" the best future of Chinese basketball.