Now that the teams advancing to qualifying for the 2026 World Cup have been set, it is time to look ahead to the 2030 World Cup after FIBA’s announcement in May that the tournament will be played from November 27th to December 8th of that year. The stated reason for the change is to give women’s basketball its own focus time in the year instead of being a similar calendar to men’s basketball globally, but the effects of this change are going to affect different national teams in different ways. With the likelihood that the WNBA will be even more different by that time than it will be next year, this will be the first of a two-part look at how it could change world basketball.
United States
The change in the timing of the tournament will certainly benefit the United States. The four-time defending champions have had to deal with the WNBA playoffs when getting ready for the tournament in the past six versions. In 2022, that meant that players who joined after celebrating their WNBA championship got some rest early before playing later in the tournament. Even without the possibility of CBA negotiations affecting the schedule, next year’s World Cup would lead to complicated decisions for USA Basketball with the tournament starting on September 4th.
Even though the WNBA season seems likely to extend later than it does now in future seasons, that late November start should still give the players on the team some time to rest after the season and have a proper preparation period that does not involve waiting for players to finish the playoffs. The 2022 Finals nearly went to the maximum number of games, which would have only meant one day between that deciding game and the opening of the tournament. The decrease in the number of top American players playing overseas in the WNBA offseason will also help.
Canada
The change should also have benefits for Canada, which would also have the proper preparation period with their squad. They have been able to rely on their WNBA players in the past, but with their talent not being quite at the level of the United States, their disadvantage in chemistry and cohesion compared to some of the other countries has hurt them. Having an emerging young core could make them a major player in 2030, but also highlights another effect of this change. It is unlikely that any country will be able to count on their college players being able to participate in this tournament. Their current young stars should be in the WNBA by that time though and being able to rely on them over college players and overseas pros will help.
The Rest of the Americas
Season formats vary among the other top leagues in the Americas, ranging from the traditional schedule in Argentina, which has made it to the qualifying tournaments this time, to the shorter seasons designed to take place during the offseason of the corresponding men’s leagues as is the case with Puerto Rico, Brazil, and the recently emerging league in Mexico. The latter two draw players from other national teams in the Americas, but the flexibility to all three should allow all of those players to be available in time for the World Cup. The big question for all of these teams will be how reliant that they will be on players who are overseas players in Europe during this time.
Europe
The schedule change for the 2026 tournament was largely driven by Europe as clubs were concerned about the opposite issue facing the WNBA, players not getting enough rest after the tournament before the start of the season. Nearly every women’s league, including all of the top ones, follow the traditional European basketball calendar, even though their seasons are generally shorter than their counterparts on the men’s side. The 2030 schedule change will affect this continent more than any other and this is where an impetus to change the schedule back would likely originate after the first experiment.
North American fans used to a short break before the World Cup and Olympics might not be familiar with the training camps that the best resourced European federations are able to run before tournaments. FIBA rules allow for four weeks of mandatory activities for players before a tournament and some countries are even able to get players to report voluntarily before then. All of this leads to the question of how this tournament will be handled that year if leagues have to take a five or six week break in the middle of their season. The lead in this regard is going to come from FIBA Europe when they figure out how to schedule EuroLeague and EuroCup for 2030-31.
Asia
The three current powers on the Asian side, China, Japan, and South Korea, have pretty similar setups in basketball. Even though their seasons may not end up running as long as the bigger leagues in Europe, players are in structured training for nearly the entire year and only a few of their players play in other countries. As a result, club seasons are likely to be scheduled around the World Cup and their teams should all have lengthy training camps to prepare. One event that may need some rescheduling though is Japan’s Empress’s Cup, a national tournament for teams from all levels of play that is coming up on its 92nd edition, first being contested back in 1931.
The expansion of World Cup qualifying could also lead to other countries getting into the global picture from Asia. Taiwan has undergone a number of changes on the men’s basketball side and shown increased ambition, which has not been matched on the women’s basketball side, which just bounced back from a major low instead. The Philippines is starting to build up a women’s basketball infrastructure to match the men’s side, which still has a long way to go, while also doing a better job of recruiting American-born players into their youth national team setup early. West Asia has always been playing catchup to basketball-crazy Lebanon, but league play has certainly become more formalized there in recent years besides the prestigious Arab Club Championship.
Oceania
Basketball in Oceania is also in the middle of a period of change right now. Basketball has certainly always been strong in Australia, but it has not generally been that commercially viable on the women’s side. Things came to a head in recent years and the federation has relinquished some of their grip on the league, allowing the group that has developed some degree of commercial success on the men’s side to try to accomplish the same task here. The season will still likely be short, but it will be a little trickier for them to schedule around the World Cup. Being able to increase domestic salaries could also head off players going to Europe for more money. Australia will still benefit from being able to have their WNBA players available before the tournament instead of having to find time to train between the WNBA and local seasons.
New Zealand has not made the global stage for nearly two decades, but they have plenty of hopes for that to turn around with an exciting group of younger players. They are being helped by their local league making a major gamble, moving their season to have some overlap with Australia’s main league, but getting a major broadcast deal that allowed them to claim something truly rare on the women’s side, actual pay equality with the men’s league, allowing them to bring back some nationals who had been living year-round in Australia and to poach Australians with significant experience. Looking ahead though, that schedule also happens to run during that 2030 World Cup time period so there will have to be adjustments if they qualify.
Africa
Which teams emerge from qualifying will change how the schedule impacts national teams in Africa as there are teams that rely heavily on locally based players and teams that rely heavily on players in Europe, college, or increasingly, in the WNBA. Seasons vary in length and timing in domestic leagues with a short tournament serving as the continental club championship. While traditional powers continue to do well, there are emerging countries like South Sudan and Rwanda that are trying to break the recent West African dominance.
Nigeria continues to be the dominant power though and there are two trends to watch for them. On one hand, they have decreased their reliance on American-born players with some talented Nigerian-born players emerging and then continuing their careers abroad. On the other hand, they have made efforts to recruit American-born players earlier for youth national team play, meaning that they could have more WNBA players in their setup in the future instead of losing them to the United States permanently.
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