By winning the 2023-24 EuroCup as newcomers, Paris Basketball made a significant impact on European basketball. This success paved the way for the French club to join the EuroLeague. Ahead of the 2024-25 season, Paris Basketball unveiled its new visual identity, marking a new chapter in its history, according to the club’s press release. The fresh identity was presented at a special ceremony in the Gustave Eiffel Lounge on the Eiffel Tower, which is symbolic given the team’s updated logo.
Paris Basketball was launched in 2018 with the vision of establishing a major basketball club in the French capital. David Kahn, a former director of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, played a key role in this project and went on to become the President of Paris Basketball. In 2021, the team joined the LNB Pro A, France’s top-tier men’s professional league. Since February 2024, Paris Basketball has played its home games at the Adidas Arena, which was built specifically for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
According to David Kahn’s official statement, Paris Basketball is entering a new season, making its EuroLeague debut, and the new identity aligns with the club’s DNA, which is focused on making basketball in Paris shine at an international level. The team is “proud to extend the magic of the Olympic summer with this logo that naturally reflects both the sport and the city of Paris.”
The new logo, designed by graphic designer Alexis Taïeb (a.k.a. Tyrsa), in collaboration with the Yard agency, retains the basic round structure of the previous version, featuring a basketball-themed design in the center and circular text around it. However, the central image was reimagined, with the lines of the basketball redrawn to resemble the Eiffel Tower.
The tower’s structure includes a four-pointed star at the top, colored in white, red, and blue, mirroring the outer border of the emblem. This star also appears in the club’s secondary “Paris” logos, as a dot over the “i” and within the “P” symbol.
France’s national colors have always played a prominent role in the club’s color palette, which is primarily black and white. In the new version, the national colors are more vivid, while the thick black rim has been removed. The text surrounding the emblem, “Paris Basketball,” is now black and features a different typeface with wider lettering.
In sports club branding, it’s notable how logos and symbols are used in a variety of ways to express the brand. Versatile communication channels—both print and digital—along with merchandise and different target audiences, allow the evaluation of a brand’s “elasticity.”
Secondary and tertiary logos are common in this field, but at times, the visual connection to the brand’s core identity can be lost. In this respect, a recurring design element like Paris Basketball’s star is a real asset, as it creates a link between the primary logo and secondary emblems.
The basketball-tower design is both technically and aesthetically impressive. While the basketball motif is quite common in the sport, the idea of combining it with the Eiffel Tower is brilliant, resulting in a truly unique symbol.
