French basketball enjoys in amazement Hurricane Victor Wembanyama

Tickets run out where he plays. The French basketball prodigy Victor Wembanyama has become the great attraction of the national competition, a few months after his expected landing in the NBA.

“The never seen”, “an extraterrestrial”, “nothing comparable”… The leaders of the French national league do not give credit to the ‘Wembamania’ that is unleashed in every game played by the Metropolitans Boulogne-Levallois, their club of the outskirts of Paris.

Heralded as the next dominator of world basketball, the 19-year-old, 7-foot-2 center has sold out 14 of his 17 games. The same thing will happen on Friday, in the quarterfinals of the Leaders Cup against Asvel.

In Blois, at the beginning of February, the 2,850 seats were sold as soon as they went on sale.

“It’s the sixth season that I’ve been in charge of ticket sales and I’ve never seen anything like this, neither for the play-off final last year nor when we hosted Asvel at the beginning of the season in our first Elite game (the French league)”, explained to AFP Johan Gallon, responsible for ‘tickets’ at ADA Blois.

In Pau, where Elan Bearnais will host the Metropolitans on March 7, the club has tried to adapt to face unprecedented demand.

“We have sold all the places in seats and now we have made standing places available for sale through an accepted prefectural authorization, something that is not very frequent,” said Audrey Sauret, the club’s general director.

For Alain Beral, president of the national basketball league, ‘Wemby’ reinforces the upward trend of a greater presence of the public in the French pavilions.

“We feel an acceleration because everyone knows that he will not be here next year, and if people want to see him, they will have to get up at dawn (to follow the NBA games), while here they can see it with their own eyes.” , points out to AFP.

The best scorer in the Elite league (22.2 average points) could become the first Frenchman to be chosen number 1 in the NBA draft in May. He would make it to the competition the next season.

While waiting, the French championship wants to “capitalize” the French international. At the moment the season marks a record for attendance, with 3,685 spectators per game on average.

“The big difference is in the behavior in purchases, since the sale opens people ask us for the date to have a place ‘in the game where the big one plays'”, smiles Audrey Sauret.

“We know that they will not be people who will be loyal for a year-round subscription but it is still a clientele that you have to go find for two or three games a year,” he adds.

In its pavilion it has also become an almost impossible challenge to find ‘tickets’: At the time of the opening of the online sale, the number of people connected is greater than the places available in the small Marcel Cerdan Sports Palace in Levallois.

Is there a fear of a decrease in the number of spectators after the announced march of the pivot to the NBA?

“The luck is that the people who come to discover something come back because they liked it. The objective is to lead the clubs to excellence with large budgets, great French players who return, so I don’t think the balloon will deflate after Wembanyama “, explains Alain Beral.

fby/pm/iga