Crailsheim Merlins

Crailsheim spent last season back in ProA after a relegation from the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) at the end of 2023/24. The Merlins first reached the top flight in 2014, went down two years later, and returned in 2019 under coach Tuomas Iisalo, who took them to their first BBL playoff appearance in 2020/21.

The basketball department began as a student initiative inside the multi-sports club TSV Crailsheim, registered on 31 January 1986. It took until 1995, when the team moved into a former American military barracks, for results to turn, and until 2001 for the first promotion to what is now ProA. A later move into a renovated market hall coincided with the next stage of the climb.

Willie Young ties the two eras together: he played for the Merlins from 2004 to 2007, then returned as head coach from 2012 to 2014 and led them to the 2014 ProA final and the club's first-ever promotion to the BBL. Trae Bell-Haynes was named the league's Best Offensive Player in 2020/21, the same campaign that produced the playoff run, and Haywood Highsmith passed through Crailsheim before an NBA career with the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors.

Home games are played some way outside the city itself, at the Arena Hohenlohe in Ilshofen.

The arena holds 3,000.