About a year and a half ago In May 2021, Baskonia decided to expand its academy and take the step of joining women’s basketball with the creation of training teams in the juvenile cadet and junior categories. Due to the reception given to the initiative and the fruitful first season in women’s basketball, Zurbano’s entity decided last summer to go one step further and add a fourth team to the structure in the children’s category, thus reaching a figure of around 50 players registered in the youth academy.
However, as this newspaper has been able to learn, Baskonia’s ambition does not stop there and it intends to go one step further and take the definitive leap with the creation of a professional team that can compete in the Women’s Leaguethus following the path that the soccer section of the group has already traveled with the creation of the Gloriosa and its arrival at the elite of state women’s soccer.
In this case, yes the process would be different. While Alavés began its project with the absorption of an already existing structure such as Gasteizko Neskak, Baskonia has opted to go building the house from its foundationsfocusing first on the training categories on which a professional women’s basketball team that competes in the Endesa Women’s League can be based in the future.
At the moment, the project is in a hot spot and, in fact, the objective of the entity is to be able to compete in the state basketball elite within two years, four after the female structure began to roll. This, obviously, could not be fulfilled in the event that it began its journey from the regional categories, but the idea of Baskonia is not that, but to be able to buy the place of a team that is going through financial difficultieseither in the Endesa Women’s League, Women’s League 2 or similar – the higher the category, the better – and from there try to settle in the First Division as quickly as possible.
COMPETITION FOR THE ARASKI
Another of the main differences with the meteoric growth of Las Gloriosas is that, contrary to what happens in the football section, Álava already has a team established in the highest category of state women’s basketball, such as Araski, who has been competing in the Endesa Women’s League since 2016 and is currently playing his seventh season in the elite.
So it would be a Great news for the province to have two women’s teams of basketball in the highest division if the Baskonia project meets its objectives, although obviously it would also mean competition to attract fans to their respective pavilions every weekend. The advantage for the Catalans is that they already have facilities and staff for the men’s team that could also be used by the women’s team.
EXCITING PROJECT
Be that as it may, Baskonia’s desire to join the increasingly competitive Endesa Women’s League is firm and that is great news for the tournament, which in recent years has added several names from ACB clubs, and It speaks well of the work that is being done to attract capital and players of an ever higher level. In this sense, the Catalans have good models to look at, such as Valencia Basket, which for years has been one of the great powers in the league, Casademont Zaragoza, which has had a fantastic start to the season and is located in the At the top of the table, Movistar Estudiantes, which recently rose to the top flight, or even Barcelona, which after its merger with Club Basquet Santfeliuenc reached the First Division last year and is now settled in play-off positions.
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Baskonia wants to make the leap to the Women’s League