Team USA will play its games in the Philippines for the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, starting in the classification round, putting the biggest draw of the 32-nation meet right in front of the Filipino audience.
In 2019, the FIBA Basketball World featured a record of 54 current NBA players.
"The three hosts of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, the Philippines, Japan, and Indonesia, have selected preferred teams to play the Group Phase in their respective countries.
"FIBA's Central Board has confirmed, after consultation with the host nations, that USA will play in the Philippines, Slovenia will travel to Japan and Canada will land in Indonesia.
"Both Slovenia and Canada have qualified for the World Cup, while the USA is in a good position to clinch a berth in the tournament field in the last Window of the Qualifiers," announced FIBA today, December 12.
For Filipino basketball fans, this means a once-in-a-lifetime chance to physically witness some of the best basketball players in the world at the designated FIBA venues in the Philippines and all world cup 2023 games live online and tv broadcast.
"The Philippines, as tournament host for the Group Phase and Final phase, will be placed in Pot 1 for the draw. They will be joined in Pot 1 by the best-ranked teams in the FIBA World Ranking Men, after the last qualifying window to be played in February 2023.
"For that reason, USA and Philippines will be placed in two different groups of the four that will take place in the Philippines," read the FIBA official announcement.
Meanwhile, Japan chose the No. 7 team, Slovenia. Japan and Slovenia will play their Group Phase in Okinawa, where two groups will be played. Canada will play in Jakarta, Indonesia, with two of the 8 top teams of the FIBA World Ranking Men joining them in the two groups in Indonesia.
The Philippines, as main host, will be placed in Pot 1 during the official draw, along with the best-ranked teams after the final qualifying window. That means the Filipinos won’t get to play Team USA unless they reach the knockout round.
The draw will be held in Manila on April 29.
Next year’s event will mark just the second time in World Cup history that 32 countries will be playing.
Two venues will host four groups in Manila during the classification round with the KO stages to be played at Philippine Arena in Bulacan province, which can seat 53,000 fans.
