Brussels Basketball, for sponsorship reasons known as Circus Brussels Basketball, is a professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

club based in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. The team plays in the

BNXT League The BNXT League, for sponsorship reasons the betFirst BNXT League, is a professional basketball league in Belgium and the Netherlands. The league is the first tier in both the Dutch and Belgian system, replacing the Dutch Basketball League, DBL a ...

. Home games are played at the Sports Complex Neder-Over-Heembeek. Founded as Excelsior Brussels in 1957, the team plays in the Neder-Over-Heembeek complex.

History

The club was founded in 1957. In 1999 Excelsior merged with AERA Castor and renamed itself AERA Excelsior Brussel VZW. After 7 years in the 3e Nationale, the Belgian third division, Excelsior promoted to the 2e Nationale in 2009. In the first two years, Excelsior finished 4th and 5th and was defeated in the quarterfinals. In the 2011–12 season Excelsior reached the semifinals and in the 2012–13 season, it finished 10th while missing the Playoffs. The club moved to the professional

Scooore League The Pro Basketball League (PBL), was the highest tier level professional basketball league in Belgium for clubs. In 2021, the league was succeeded by the Belgian-Dutch BNXT League. Through 2014, for sponsorship reasons, the league was previously ...

, the first tier in Belgium, for the 2013–14 season. Excelsior received a C-licence, which allowed them to play with a lower budget in the league. The club also got a new main sponsor in Basic-Fit, and was renamed Basic-Fit Brussels. During the 2016–17 season, Brussels participated in a European competition for the first time by entering the

2016–17 FIBA Europe Cup The 2016–17 FIBA Europe Cup was the 2nd season of the FIBA Europe Cup, a European basketball club competition organised by FIBA Europe. The season began on 18 October 2016, with the regular season, and concluded on April 25, 2017, with the second ...

season. Brussels finished fourth and last in Group A, winning one out of six games. Along with this, the club finished in the third place in the Belgian League and reached the Finals for the first time in club history by beating

Antwerp Giants Antwerp Giants, named Telenet Giants Antwerp for sponsorship reasons, are a Belgian professional basketball club based in Antwerp. Their home arena is Lotto Arena. The club plays in the BNXT League, the highest tier of Belgian basketball. The clu ...

in the semi-finals. On 2 July 2019, the club announced it changed its name to Phoenix Brussels, a name the club used for three seasons. From December 2020 to March 2021, Phoenix played its home games in the

Palais 12 Palais 12 / Paleis 12 (french: Palais 12, nl, Paleis 12) is an indoor arena in Brussels used for concerts and spectacles. With a capacity of roughly 15,000 it is one of the largest indoor venues in Belgium. Located on the Heysel Plateau, it was o ...

. However, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, there were no people in attendance. Since the 2021–22 season, Brussels plays in the

, in which the national leagues of Belgium and the Netherlands have been merged. On 17 June 2022, the club signed a sponsor agreement with Circus, leading to a name change; the club colours were also changed to red. The team also signed Belgian national team player

Kevin Tumba Kevin Tumba (born February 23, 1991) is a Belgian-DR Congolese professional basketball player for Liège Basket of the BNXT League. He usually plays at the center position. Professional career Tumba made his professional debut in the 2011–12 ...

Sponsorship names

* Excelsior Bruxelles: 1999–2013 * Basic-Fit Brussels: 2013–2019 * Phoenix Brussels: 2019–2022 * Circus Brussels Basketball: 2022–present

Arenas

Upon the club's establishment in 1957, the team played outdoors on the field of the

King Baudouin Stadium The King Baudouin Stadium (french: Stade Roi Baudouin , nl, Koning Boudewijnstadion ) is a sports ground in north-west Brussels, Belgium. Located in the Heysel district of the City of Brussels, it was built to embellish the Heysel Plateau in v ...

(then the Heysel Stadium). The current home arena of Brussels is the Sports complex Neder-Over-Heembeek. In the late 2020–21 season, the team moved to the

for all games from 12 March 2021.

Honours

Domestic competitions

Belgian League The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 Belgian First Division A, 2020 ...

: ''Runners-up (1)'': 2016–17

Season by season

Players

Current roster

Notable players

Head coaches

* Serge Crevecoeur * Laurent Monier (February–March 2020) *

Ian Hanavan Ian Hanavan (born August 15, 1980) is an American-born Belgian retired basketball player and current coach. He last coached Phoenix Brussels. Standing at , Hanavan played as power forward. Professional career In October 2007, Hanavan signed with ...

(September 2020–October 2021) * Jean-Marc Jaumin (October 2021–present)

References

External links

Official websiteExcelsior Brussels at Ethias League website
{{BNXT League 1957 establishments in Belgium Basketball teams established in 1957 Basketball teams in Belgium Pro Basketball League Sport in Brussels