Okinawa City has been selected to be one of the hosts of the 2023 FIBA World Championship Preliminary Basketball matches.

After the selection, Okinawa City Mayor Sachio Kuwae said, “I feel so happy. We can introduce Okinawa City and Okinawa Prefecture to the world, and we can expect a great economic effect from the games. We can also expect to have a professional basketball player from Okinawa to play in the NBA.”

There were 32 proposed sites for the games in countries all over the world, and three countries and cities were selected for the world championship matches; Okinawa City in Japan, Manila in the Philippine, and Jakarta in Indonesia.

Okinawa City invited officials from FIBA to visit in June and October for a presentation and introduction of the new sports facility with 10,000-level seating capacity that is scheduled to open in 2020. The new facility is also to become the home court of the Ryukyu Golden Kings. The popularity of basketball in Okinawa and its cultural background of diversity were also cited as factors for selecting the city.

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