North American Brandon Weatherspoon provides Paisas with effectiveness in three-point shooting. PHOTO camilo suárez
In days of balances and projections for next year,Paisas, the Medellín basketball team, owned by Daniel Hazan, who has Ryan Castro as a partner and won both Professional League titles,He is already thinking about 2026 as the year in which he wants to elevate Colombian basketball to an international level.
To achieve that goal, the presentation in the FIBA America Champions League is the ideal scenario. For this reason, its owners, managers and coaching staff work to maintain the champion team and reinforce it with two international figures, since for this competition they can count on six foreigners and the same number of Colombians.
Jorge Saldarriaga, president of the club, gave an overview of the first year and a half of Paisas, its achievements, new goals and what is next on the path of this quintet that wants to transcend not only in national and international basketball, but also in the city. Turning Medellín into the new cradle of professional basketball is the goal. “From a sporting point of view we are very satisfied with the titles we have achieved, for recovering basketball in the Iván de Bedout, with the institutional support we are having from Inder, the Mayor’s Office and the Government of Antioquia, but we are aware that these are the first steps for what we want, which is a project for the development of Colombian basketball, because we have a lot of talent, an audience to explore and one of the goals is to fill the Iván de Bedout with families who come to enjoy the basketball and the show that is offered on stage.”
The investment, says Saldarriaga, exceeds one million dollars, which has been allocated to the payment of the players’ payroll, travel for the competition, a large staff for their attention and everything related to the logistics for holding the matches.
The League does not provide economic benefits and the winner only receives the trophy as a prize and the place to be in the international tournament, although the Ministry of Sports provides a basic resource.
In this global strategy, Paisas is working to strengthen the brand, become more visible and, therefore, they are carrying out several campaigns and are showing the brand in various places in the city, such as the subway, the stadium, commune 13 and in the approaches with the DIM and Atlético Nacional, promoting Paisas in their matches.
“We want to turn basketball into a family show, that both children and their parents and grandparents come to enjoy, but also find an offer, an experience with a show at the games,” he said, adding: “We are the only professional team in Medellín, that is why we are called Paisas, because everyone who lives and was born here feels identified with the club, which wants to take Colombian basketball to the top.
In that, the bet for the Champions League that we will have from January is to advance more than we did last year, when we were in the quarterfinals.”
The idea of the Paisas coaching staff is to maintain a large percentage of the team that won the League title, with foreigners Brandon Weatherspoon, Ty-Shon Alexander, Eric and Marcus Crawford, who ended up being vital in the second campaign of 2025. Along with them, players likeLuis Almanza, Soren de Luque, Leyder Moreno, José Lozano and the promising youngsters David Ojeda, Esneyder Mosquera and Luis Benítez, who could continue for 2026. “The idea is that, in addition to the foreigners who finished, with whom their continuity will be negotiated, we can have three reinforcements in the base, forward and center positions,” commented Raúl Pabón, sports director of Paisas.
Paisas’ participation in the Champions League requires an investment of $350,000; Therefore, the support of fans by purchasing tickets, which are already on sale for that first phase in January, is essential. At the start, Paisas will have to faceCaimanes del Llano and Astros de Jalisco (Mexico). The first two advance to the second phase.
Ticket sales have a record of 350 tickets sold, but Paisas’ goal is to exceed 3,000, since, in addition to the great show that will be seen at the Iván de Bedout, this is the balance point to compensate for the large investment that the team will have to make in payroll and setting up the show, with the specifications required by FIBA.
