The annual Basketball Day was held today at the USH CSKA in Moscow. The festivities were highlighted by an all-star game, which featured former basketball stars, coaches, sports executives and celebrities.
There were four teams, each named after a legend of Russian basketball: Lidiy Alekseyeva, Sergey Belov, Alexander Gomelsky and Vladimir Kondrashin.
VTB United League president Sergey Kushchenko was one of the leaders on the Sergey Belov team. Together with Khimki general Pavel Astakhov, Kushchenko helped his team to a 46-41 win in the first game, before losing to the Alexander Gomelsky team in the final.
The head of Moscow’s basketball federation, Alexander Novozhilov, Soviet basketball legends Ivan Edeshko and Sergey Tarakanov, rapper L’One, football player Dmitry Bulykin and many others took part in the action.
In addition to watching the all-star game, visitors could attend master classes, get autographs with Russian and Soviet basketball stars, and watch the film “Upward Motion.”
VTB United League president Sergey Kushchenko:
– Any event connected to basketball deserves attention. It helps increase your audience. In my opinion, we can even compete sometimes with the more popular sports when we put on events like Basketball Day.
For the VTB League, this translates into fans who will come to games. It’s also a positive for basketball academies, because a lot of kids were here and also fell in love with the game. Tomorrow, they’ll go and sign up to play on a team. As for the event, we’ve always got stars here, plenty of entertainment, and a fabulous setting in the USH CSKA. I think if we can get at least 100 kids to fall in love with basketball today, that would already be a good outcome.
