Zhejiang launches premier basketball grassroots sporting event

Following the viral success of Jiangsu's Suchao, or the Jiangsu Football City League, Zhejiang has unveiled its own mass-participation basketball spectacle — the "ZheBA".

ZheBA, or the Zhejiang Provincial City Basketball League, is a premier grassroots sporting event initiated by Zhejiang province to promote nationwide fitness and tap into the potential of community-level basketball events.

On the evening of July 6, the opening match of the 2025 ZheBA was held in Zhuji, Shaoxing, marking the official launch of the province's largest and most prestigious grassroots basketball competition.

The league spans all 11 prefecture-level cities and 90 counties (cities and districts) across the province and is structured into two phases.

The first phase is the "Hundred Counties Battle" preliminary round taking place in July, during which 11 county-level champion teams will emerge. The second phase — the City Championship — will run from Aug 8 to February. At that stage, 22 teams, composed of the 11 county champions and 11 city-level joint teams, will compete in a mixed format for the ultimate provincial title.

Currently, preliminary schedules across the province are being released. Hangzhou has organized its matches into Eastern and Western regional sections, with the finals set for July 26-27. Shaoxing's preliminaries run from July 6 to 19, with the winner representing the city in the provincial championship. In Zhoushan, county and district champions will advance directly to the next round, while remaining teams will form joint squads for competition. Other regions including Huzhou, Jiaxing, and Jinhua are expected to conclude their preliminaries by mid-July.

Using basketball as a unifying force, Zhejiang is promoting a deeper integration of mass fitness and local culture, injecting fresh vitality into grassroots sports development. Over the next six months, this basketball celebration is set to ignite the sporting enthusiasm of people across the province.