Perm,  28 July 2014. Sibur and The National Basketball Association (NBA) today announced that the Olimpiets facility in Perm, Russia will be the first court to be refurbished under a multiyear partnership to grow the game of basketball in Russia by providing safe and accessible basketball facilities. Twin brothers Brook Lopez of the Brooklyn Nets and Robin Lopez of the Portland Trail Blazers will conduct a basketball clinic for local children at the refurbished court on August 2nd.

As part of their partnership, the NBA and SIBUR launched a program to regenerate basketball facilities in 10 cities in Russia. Beginning with the opening of the regenerated court in Perm, these improved facilities will increase opportunities for the community, including SIBUR’s employees and their children, to learn and play the game of basketball.

For the editors:

SIBUR is a uniquely positioned, vertically integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company. SIBUR owns and operates Russia’s largest gas processing business in terms of associated petroleum gas processing volumes, and is a leader in the Russian petrochemicals industry. As of 31 March 2014, SIBUR operates 27 production sites located all over Russia, has over 1,400 large customers engaged in the energy, chemical, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), automotive, construction and other industries in approximately 70 countries worldwide, and employs over 27,000 personnel.

The NBA is a global sports and media business built around three professional sports leagues: the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and the NBA Development League.  The league has established a major international presence with games and programming in 215 countries and territories in 47 languages and NBA merchandise for sale in more than 125,000 stores in 100 countries on 6 continents.    

NBA rosters at the start of the 2013-14 season featured a record 92 international players from 39 countries and territories.  NBA Digital’s assets include NBA TV, which is available in 60 million U.S. homes, and NBA.com, which recorded 26.9 billion page views during the 2013-14 season, with more than half of all visitors originating from outside of North America.    

The NBA is the No. 1 professional sports league on social media, with more than 650 million likes and followers globally across all league, team, and player platforms.  Through NBA Cares, the league and its teams and players have donated more than $237 million to charity, completed more than 3 million hours of hands-on community service, and created more than 895 places where kids and families can live, learn, or play.