Zenit BC and Championika sign cooperation agreement

On Friday, July 4, at the CSC Arena, the Zenit Basketball Club and the market leader in children's sports and education franchising, Championika, signed a partnership agreement. The cooperation agreement will open new horizons for the development of youth basketball in Russia.

Now everyone will have the opportunity to open an official basketball school under the Zenit brand in their city. The franchise combines the experience of the St. Petersburg club in developing young players with the effective solutions of the managing company Championika. By acquiring the franchise, you will become part of the Zenit BC team and gain the status of an official club school in your city.

The availability of training programs for boys and girls of all skill levels, from ages 3 to 16, will attract a wide range of young athletes. The best students will have the opportunity to attend tryouts at the Zenit Basketball Academy.

The Championika franchise is a ready-made business solution for entrepreneurs of any experience level, allowing them to become part of a professional community and open their own basketball schools.

In recent years, Zenit BC has proven through its results that it is one of the most successful clubs in Russia. The St. Petersburg team is the champion of the VTB United League (2022), the holder of the Russian Cup (2024), the holder of the Supercup of the United League (2023, 2024), the silver medalist of the VTB United League Championship (2025), and the bronze medalist of the VTB United League Championship (2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2024).

Earlier, in 2021, the Zenit Football Club signed a cooperation agreement with Championika.

Following the signing of the agreement, journalists asked questions to representatives of the management of the Blue-White-Sky Blues and Championika, and also spoke with current partners who have already acquired basketball and football franchises.

To find out more about what the franchise offers and to submit an application, you can visit the special website.

Zenit BC CEO Alexander Tserkovny noted that thanks to the partnership with Championika, even more children will have the chance to become professional athletes:

The company Championika together with Zenit will develop basketball in all corners of our vast Motherland. A very important direction for us is the youth project — the well-known Zenit Basketball Academy. We have always paid and continue to pay great attention to the search and selection of talented children. Thanks to the network that we will develop together with Championika, we will definitely identify more of such children. Zenit is the first professional basketball club that will develop such a network. We can confidently say now that, thanks to the experience of the football franchise, many talented kids have been identified, and they have already become part of the youth project of the football Zenit. I believe that soon we will see those guys first in the football club's lineup and then in the basketball club, who will be identified through this network. In the very near future, a Zenit school will open in Petrozavodsk, and we are waiting for the other cities, regions, and areas.

Championika CEO Andrey Kravchenko emphasized that Zenit will be the first in Russian basketball to develop a network of its schools across the country:

We are very pleased to officially announce our partnership with Zenit BC today. We plan to open about a hundred training locations in the coming years. The goal is to work with the widest possible audience, from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Kaliningrad. And these can be not only cities in Russia, as we have examples of foreign partnerships. The primary goal is to build the largest network, but it is also important to create a unique network. There are currently no similar projects in the country; Zenit is the first to open such an extensive network of branches. We want to provide children not only with quality, safe, and comfortable training on the basketball court but also with a basketball life outside of that court. We want children all over the country to feel like part of the Zenit Basketball Club family. This is our main task.