Streetball is coming back downtown. The Atlanta Hawks and the College Park Skyhawks are teaming up with Hoop It Up to host a one-day 3x3 basketball tournament at the Georgia World Congress Center on Saturday, October 17, 2026, marking the first time Hawks-branded 3x3 basketball has returned to the city in seven years.
The event is free for spectators to attend, according to WSB-TV, and features divisions for nearly every kind of player: recreational brackets for boys and girls ages 10 to 18, adult divisions for men and women, an adult wheelchair division, and a competitive Pro-Am division carrying a $2,000 prize. Standard-division teams can roster three to five players, while Pro-Am squads are capped at four. Every team is guaranteed at least three games, and all games are played to 21 points.
Registration, Costs, and What Players Get
Registration is open now through midnight on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, at hawks.com/hoopitup, per the same report. Standard-division team registration starts at $260, while Pro-Am team registration starts at $330. Every registered player receives a co-branded jersey and one ticket to a select Hawks home game at State Farm Arena — a nice perk timed just ahead of the team's regular-season opener against the Houston Rockets on Saturday, October 24, 2026.
Beyond the games themselves, the tournament will feature appearances by Hawks alumni, along with slam dunk and knockout contests offering their own prizes, plus additional youth basketball activities for younger fans and families. Jon Babul, the Hawks' vice president of basketball programs, framed the return of the tournament as part of a broader push to expand the sport locally. Babul said partnering with Hoop It Up to bring 3x3 basketball back to Atlanta is a way to grow the game, and added that the Hawks are seeking new ways to grow basketball and create meaningful community experiences, per the WSB-TV report.
A Grassroots Brand With Olympic Ties
Hoop It Up itself has deep roots in American streetball culture. The tour was founded in 1989 in Dallas as a grassroots 3-on-3 basketball circuit and was acquired in July 2019 by NBA Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett through his company, Big Ticket Sports LLC, according to a PRWeb release announcing the acquisition. That local hiatus in Atlanta lines up roughly with the period when Garnett's company took over the brand and began rebuilding its event calendar nationally.
The Pro-Am division carries stakes beyond bragging rights and the cash prize. Hoop It Up signed a sanctioning agreement with FIBA in 2021 that aligns its Pro-Am events with official FIBA 3x3 rules and rankings, meaning competing players can earn FIBA 3x3 ranking points that feed into international competition and Olympic qualifying pathways, per Hoop It Up's own announcement. That connection matters more than it once did: 3x3 basketball debuted as an official Olympic medal sport at the Tokyo 2020 Games, returned at Paris 2024, and is set to expand to a 12-team format for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, according to FIBA 3x3.
Downtown Venue, Southside Ties
The tournament's home for the day, the Georgia World Congress Center, opened on September 8, 1976, and offers 1.4 million square feet of exhibit space across 12 halls — making it the fourth-largest convention center in the country. The Georgia World Congress Center Authority operates a 200-acre downtown campus that also includes Centennial Olympic Park, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the connected Signia by Hilton Atlanta hotel, putting the tournament in the middle of one of the region's biggest combined sports and convention districts.
The College Park Skyhawks, co-hosting the event, are the Atlanta Hawks' official NBA G League affiliate, having relocated to Georgia for the 2019–20 season after previously playing as the Erie BayHawks. The Skyhawks play home games at Gateway Center Arena in College Park, a $45 million, 3,500-seat venue that opened in November 2019 and also serves as home court for the WNBA's Atlanta Dream, according to the WNBA.
Part of a National Playbook
Atlanta's event fits a pattern Hoop It Up has run with other NBA organizations. The tour has staged multi-year community tournaments with the Golden State Warriors at Thrive City in San Francisco and, as Hoodline previously reported, with the Milwaukee Bucks in Deer District as recently as August 2026. Teams across the league appear to be leaning on the format to drive ticket promotions, youth clinics, and fan engagement ahead of new seasons — and Atlanta's version, blending a Pro-Am cash prize with free spectator access and giveaways tied to opening night, follows that same script.
