MUNICH (Germany) - FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2025 was the first edition of the flagship tournament to be held in four different countries - Czechia, Germany, Italy and Greece - and was immediately lauded for shattering attendance and engagement records.
The social media figures published with the tournament's conclusion showed that video views emerged as the metric with the most meteoric rise, increasing to 210 million, or by 389 percent compared to the previous edition.
A newly-published Host City Impact Study conducted by Nielsen Sports though has further unveiled that the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket had a multi-faceted positive effect on Bologna, Brno, Hamburg and Piraeus, that far outperformed the benefits the 2023 hosts had. It is worth noting however that the 2023 edition was hosted in two countries, under a different competition system.
The most tangible of those benefits is the overall monetary impact which rose to a cumulative €40.9 million according to the report. This means there was a spectacular 95 percent increase for the hosts compared to the impact of the 2023 edition, in Slovenia and Israel.
To determine this figure, Nielsen Sports calculated the sum of the economic, media and social impact and subtracted the environmental impact.
The main contributor of course was the economic impact, calculated at €33.3 million. The study found that a third of that, €11.1 million, was direct expenditure, while the rest was the sum of the indirect and induced financial benefits. An important factor was the increased spending by fans and other visitors to the event, as they spent an estimated €3.17 million, which represents a whopping 119 percent rise compared to 2023.
The breakdown of the total impact (economic, social and media) per city confirms that, as expected, the city that hosted the Final Phase in addition to one of the four groups extracted the largest share. Piraeus generated an estimated €20.9 million, that translates into 52 percent of the total impact. Hamburg’s share was €10.4 million, Bologna followed with €5.2 million and Brno was very close with €4.5 million.
A second big contributor to the impressive increase of the overall monetary benefit was the Media Value of the event, that was calculated at €7 million. This figure includes TV broadcast, online coverage and social media coverage, and what stands out is the €5.6 million of Quality Indexed Television Value, distributed among the four hosts.
The German TV and streaming audiences rose to 26.9 million viewers, amounting to over a third of the global audience of 73.92 million, while Italy and Greece completed the podium of audience numbers. Unsurprisingly, the Belgian host broadcaster achieved the highest rate in terms of TV sponsoring contacts though, as Belgium completed an historic run to be crowned back-to-back FIBA Women’s EuroBasket champions.
The study is also delving deeper into the components of the tournament’s well-document social media success. One of the most interesting findings for the hosts is that social media posts mentioning the four cities generated over 8 million impressions, achieving a combined net advertising value and Quality Index media value of over €200,000.
The Nielsen Sports methodology was based on a retrospective analysis and included primary research data collected through onsite surveys, cross media monitoring and evaluation, as well as additional expertise and knowledge from more than 150 Host City Impact studies that were successfully carried out in the past.
The complete FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2025 Host Impact Study can be downloaded here in PDF format.
FIBA