FIBA has awarded Japan the hosting rights for the Women’s Basketball World Cup 2030 and France those for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2031, underlining the international federation’s preference for hosts with organisational pedigree, sporting weight and the ability to project the tournament beyond the competition itself. Tokyo will stage the women’s event from November 26 to December 8, 2030, while the men’s tournament will take place from August 29 to September 14, 2031 across Lille, Lyon and Paris, with the Final Phase to be played in the French capital.

The decision also carries a clear institutional meaning. FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis said the bids from the Japanese Basketball Association -JBA- and the French Basketball Federation -FFBB- met the high standards required to host a World Cup, and described both countries as nations with a strong connection to basketball and the ability to give each event its own identity. In Japan’s case, the women’s tournament will also carry added symbolic value, as it will coincide with the centenary of the JBA.

Japan and France arrive with strong credentials

In Japan, the appointment fits into a trajectory already familiar within the FIBA ecosystem. The country hosted the FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2006 and was also the venue for one of the groups in the men’s 2023 World Cup in Okinawa, so the award of the 2030 tournament extends an existing relationship with major international events, even if it will be the first time it has hosted the Women’s World Cup. The combination of recent experience and an important institutional milestone makes Tokyo a choice built on continuity rather than rupture.

France, for its part, will host a men’s World Cup for the first time, but it will do so on a much broader foundation than that of a typical first-time organiser. In recent years, Lille was one of the main venues for EuroBasket 2015, Bourges hosted the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament 2020, Strasbourg was one of the co-hosts of the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2021, and Lyon-Villeurbanne staged one of the qualifying tournaments for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup 2026. That track record is reinforced by the immediate precedent of basketball at Paris 2024, which ended with an Olympic attendance record of 1,078,319 across the men’s and women’s tournaments.

The momentum of Paris 2024 and French ambition for 2031

That Olympic legacy appears explicitly in the words of Jean-Pierre Hunckler, president of the FFBB. After FIBA’s decision, he said that “for French basketball, this is something extraordinary” and directly linked the bid to the impact of last summer’s Olympic tournament. “Basketball at the Games was a huge success,” he said, before adding that the event showed “we could reproduce that, and that’s why we decided to host the entire World Cup.” Hunckler also defended the three-city setup involving Lille, Lyon and Paris as a response to FIBA’s requirements and to a territorial and environmental logic, stressing that “we wanted an environmentally friendly event.”

Within that same French project, Victor Wembanyama appears as both a sporting and symbolic reference point. Hunckler explained that he travelled to the United States in December 2025 to present the bid to him, and said the player responded immediately: “President, I’m with you, what can I do?” He then summed up the role the federation sees for the centre on the road to 2031: “Today, we couldn’t hope for a better driving force than Victor.” France’s selection therefore rests not only on arenas, experience and organisational legacy, but also on the projection of a figure who is central both to the country and to global basketball, as FIBA finalises its next World Cups with two hosts offering reliability, track record and appeal in two strategic markets.

Two World Cups to strengthen major basketball markets

The double appointment also carries a strategic reading for FIBA. Beyond the immediate organisation of the events, the international federation has secured two markets with their own weight in global basketball. Japan strengthens FIBA’s presence in Asia through a country that has already proven its value as a host and that will reach 2030 with the added significance of its federation’s centenary, while France consolidates the momentum of a European market that has just turned the basketball tournament at Paris 2024 into a success in both attendance and visibility.

The decision therefore fits into a broader logic: entrusting the next World Cups to two countries that combine tradition, infrastructure and international appeal. In that regard, Andreas Zagklis highlighted the ability of both hosts to give the tournaments “a unique local touch of excellence and flavour,” an idea that captures the meaning of the choice and points to two editions designed not only to meet FIBA’s organisational standards, but also to strengthen the global reach of its leading competitions.