Bears Academy

Frederik Drejer Erichsen was seventeen when Denmark's senior national side called him up in 2024. Bakken Bears set up the academy in Aarhus in 2007, taking over Skovbakken's place in the second division. A double-license system still runs on that logic, letting a player turn out for the academy and the senior Bears in the same season.

For over a decade the side played under the name EBAA before switching to Bears Academy in June 2020. Blue and white carried straight across from the parent club, as did the arch-rivalry with Horsens IC, since Bears Academy has never needed a local derby of its own — it is not really a separate entity on the Aarhus basketball map.

Promotion to the Basketligaen came in 2018, as runners-up in the 1st Division, and the side has held its own there since, reaching the Danish Cup quarter-finals three times without going further. Tobias Jensen went on from the academy to Ratiopharm Ulm and the Danish national team; David Kristensen is now at CB Zamora. The club still measures itself against B.E.A.R.S. — bravery, energy, ambition, respect, solidarity.