Basketball Hoops in Europe
Street Basketball and Public Hoops Across European Countries
Basketball is often thought of as an American game, but travel quickly proves otherwise. While moving through cities and small towns across Europe, I began noticing basketball hoops tucked into courtyards, alleys, schoolyards, and public spaces—quietly integrated into daily life. These photographs document street basketball as it exists beyond professional arenas: worn backboards, improvised courts, and places where the game is played simply because space allows for it. What stood out was both the differences from home and the familiarity—evidence that basketball has become a shared, global language spoken in cities far from where the game began.
Basketball Culture Beyond the United States
By the time these photographs were made, I had already spent years documenting basketball hoops across the United States. That long-term work shaped how I saw the game elsewhere. In Europe, basketball didn’t announce itself with signage or formal courts; it appeared quietly—behind apartment buildings, beside schools, along the edges of public parks. The hoops were often worn, sometimes improvised, and clearly used. These weren’t destinations. They were part of the landscape.
Basketball as a Global Game
Basketball’s simplicity is what allows it to travel. A single hoop can turn almost any space into a court. In Europe, that adaptability felt especially apparent. Courts were smaller, surfaces uneven, and surroundings shaped by centuries of architecture rather than modern planning. Yet the game persisted, fitting itself into whatever space was available.
These photographs aren’t about organized play or competition. They focus instead on the presence of the game itself—how basketball exists even when no one is on the court. In that way, the hoops become markers of cultural exchange, evidence of how a game invented in one country has embedded itself into everyday life far beyond its origins.
What These European Hoops Reveal About Basketball in America
Seeing basketball in Europe reinforced something I had already been observing at home: the game belongs as much to ordinary places as it does to arenas. The same visual patterns repeat—bent rims, weathered backboards, courts shaped by their surroundings rather than by regulation. Basketball adapts to place, but it never loses its identity.
That realization continues to inform my ongoing work documenting basketball hoops across the United States. While the landscapes differ, the impulse behind the game feels universal. Basketball shows up wherever people live their lives, and the hoop often remains long after the players have gone—quiet, functional, and waiting.
An Ongoing Documentary Approach
This body of work exists alongside my long-term project photographing basketball hoops in America, where I continue to focus on rural towns, backyards, alleys, and overlooked spaces. Together, the images form a broader visual study of basketball as part of everyday life—one that crosses borders without losing its meaning.
Rather than treating these European photographs as a separate series, they function as context. They reinforce the idea that basketball isn’t confined to a single country or culture. It’s a shared language, expressed through place, architecture, and the simple presence of a hoop.
View More Global Basketball Hoop Photographs
American Backcourts - A long-term photography project documenting old, handmade, and overlooked basketball hoops found in small towns, rural yards, and quiet neighborhoods across the United States.
Vietnam Hoops - A photographic exploration of basketball hoops across Europe, where the game blends into historic streets, housing blocks, and everyday public spaces.
Venice Beach - A vibrant look at basketball culture in Venice Beach, California, where color, creativity, and public courts collide in one of the most iconic basketball environments in the world.
A basketball hoop stands in a small courtyard, framed by handmade brick and stone mosaics that blend public art and everyday basketball culture
A lone basketball hoop in a residential setting, photographed in black and white, highlighting the quieter side of European basketball culture.
A chain-net basketball hoop centered against a brick backdrop, highlighting durability and utility in European public courts.
A brightly colored basketball net hangs from an outdoor hoop, emphasizing the visual details that define everyday basketball culture in European cities.
Detail of a basketball hoop’s base, where metal, stone, and moss reveal the slow passage of time on an outdoor European court.
A straightforward view of an outdoor basketball hoop, photographed in black and white to focus on form, structure, and balance.
A red basketball backboard stands out against brick architecture, showing how outdoor courts are embedded within everyday European neighborhoods.
Seen through the rim of a basketball hoop, a church steeple rises in the background, placing the game within the architectural fabric of a European town.
A metal basketball backboard seen through fencing, reflecting the layered infrastructure common to many public courts across Europe.
Viewed through layers of fencing, an outdoor basketball hoop emphasizes access, separation, and the realities of shared public space.
A handmade wooden backboard with a bright orange rim highlights the improvised, personal nature of informal basketball spaces.
A basketball hoop at dusk, surrounded by fencing, captures the subdued atmosphere of an outdoor European court after daylight fades.
A solitary basketball hoop sits on a moss-covered outdoor court, reflecting the quieter, weathered character of many European public playing spaces.
A chain-net hoop framed by city windows, underscoring how basketball courts exist within dense European urban environments.
