Shanghai

The Shanghai Indoor Stadium seats 13,000 for basketball, and it has stayed the club's ground through the two most productive stretches of its history.

The club grew out of a joint venture between the Shanghai Institute of Physical Culture and Sports and Shanghai TV Station's OTV channel in 1996. Its first CBA title came in 2001–02, when the Sharks beat the Bayi Rockets 3–1 in the final with Yao Ming at centre; he had joined in 1997 and stayed through that championship before leaving for the NBA in 2002. Yao's connection to the club did not end with his playing career: he bought the Sharks outright in 2009.

A second CBA championship did not arrive until 2025–26, against the Zhejiang Golden Bulls, won 4–1. By then the club had already added the CBA Club Cup in back-to-back seasons, 2024–25 and 2025–26, giving it three domestic trophies inside two years after more than two decades without one. Liu Wei's number 8 hangs retired at the arena, a marker for a player who spent his career at the club rather than passing through it. Shanghai also beat the Philippine club Mighty Sports 78–77 to take the Merlion Cup in 2016, and the team is due to make its first appearance in the FIBA Intercontinental Cup in 2026.

No other CBA club plays in Shanghai, so there is no local derby; the closest thing to one runs against Guangdong and Zhejiang, opponents the club has met repeatedly at the sharp end of the play-offs. Twenty-four years separate the Sharks' first CBA championship from their second.