DBB team
Women’s basketball between sadness and awakening
Wants to go to the European Championships with Germany’s basketball players: Romy Bär (l). photo
© Jonas Güttler/dpa
German women’s basketball has big problems. The league is weak, the national team mostly second-class. The association now wants to change that – and bring a big tournament to Germany.
Romy Bär is experiencing turbulent basketball days. Around the turn of the year, their club, the Rheinland Lions, stopped playing due to insolvency proceedings – and they did so as leaders in the women’s Bundesliga.
A catastrophe for the already bad image of the league. And of course for the player Bär and her teammates, who suddenly found themselves without a club. “Of course that wasn’t nice. And it shows that something has to change in the structures and that a lot has to become more professional,” Bär told the German Press Agency.
While the 35-year-old is telling this, she is on foot on her way to training in the Lindenhalle in Wolfenbüttel. Because there are also positive basketball things for the experienced player. While the league makes negative headlines, the national team is more successful than it has been for a long time.
For the first time in twelve years, the German team can qualify for a European championship. Before the two games against Belgium in Wolfenbüttel on Thursday and in Bosnia-Herzegovina on Sunday, the German team is second in its group and has good chances. And that too without Satou Sabally, the only female basketball star from Germany.
“That would be great,” said Bär, who only returned to the national team in November after a six-year break and is the most experienced player in the squad with 81 caps. “Because we now have a lot of good young players who are fun to play with,” added the long-time France legionnaire.
EM participation would give a boost
Participation in the European Championships in Slovenia and Israel (June 15-25) would give women’s basketball a boost. A boost that the sport urgently needs. Because in everyday life there is a lot going on. Especially in the league, which hardly ever appears in public and structurally still looks very amateurish. “It was only this season that the league gradually started to set a few standards for what it takes to play in the league,” said Martin Geissler on the “BIG Postgame” podcast, for example.
Geissler has been managing director of the men’s Bundesliga club Mitteldeutscher BC for many years. Since this season he has also been responsible for the Gisa Lions from Halle in the DBBL. “Until now, everyone could simply register, entered a few numbers in Excel spreadsheets and no one was really able to understand which of these numbers was well-founded,” Geissler complained. “The league now has to set standards so that the league can continue to become more professional. That has to happen on the club side, but clearly also on the league side,” Geissler demanded.
Two BBL clubs represented
With the MBC and Alba Berlin, two BBL clubs are currently also represented among women. A development that Geissler welcomes in analogy to women’s football. “I would like it if more men’s Bundesliga teams also had women’s teams,” said the MBC boss, who sees a lot of construction sites. Standards, TV contract, playing times of German players. “There is much to do.”
The association understood that too. For many years, women’s basketball only led a shadowy existence in the DBB, although the world association Fiba had already put its focus more on the female sector a few years ago. So that basketball as a sport continues to grow and become more popular.
Hoping for the 2026 World Cup
Now the DBB also wants to catch up. After the successful home European men’s championship in Cologne and Berlin last year, the association is pressing ahead with its plans to apply for the 2026 women’s world championship. “Our goal is still to bring the 2026 World Cup to Germany,” DBB President Ingo Weiss told dpa. “We’ve done a lot for the men lately, now it’s the women’s turn.” The World Cup in three years’ time will be awarded at the meeting of the world association Fiba in the Philippine capital of Manila at the end of April. Argentina and India are also considered interested parties. The last World Cup was in Germany in 1998. “We think it’s time again. In addition, there aren’t that many major events on the German sports calendar in 2026,” said Weiss.
In terms of sport, Germany would not qualify at the moment. But taking part in the European Championships this year would help the team a lot in their development. “We are so close to fulfilling our dream,” said Leonie Fiebich, at 23, one of the great hopes for the future, the “BIG”. Fiebich, drafted by the Los Angeles Sparks from the WNBA in 2020 and currently active for the Flammes Carolo Basket Ardennes in France, is sure that the EM ticket will work out. “The Eurobasket in the summer is already firmly planned.”