Euroleague 2012-2013 format

[Billy Bounce]

It was announced @December that next year EL switches to new format with 2 Top16 groups instead of the current 4.

Here is a reference to the new system

Generally speaking , more EL games is better then the current max 24 games for Final Four participant, however there are some flaws in this system to my view.

The first flaw is it's a totally predefined draw. We witnessed how bad it is with FIBA Eurobasket a couple of years ago when Greek NT tanked a game with Russians to avoid Spaniards in playoffs. Every year there is a EL team that nobody wants to meet, do we really want the same problems ?

The solution is pretty simple : to make a draw for Top16 clubs random . It will make all "potential tanking" totally meaningless.

The second flaw is that the clubs that don't have enough resources ( budget, local players) to guarantee its qualification to Top16 are risking of playing only 10 regular season games for the whole Euro season.

The solution is to make "Champions league" style fix: to allow 5-th seed team EL Regular season teams to continue its euro-season in Eurocup Top16 (+4 EL drop-outs)

I'll add a poll to this thread to vote for the best next season format in your view ( if other option is selected , please post here the format you suggest)

PS. Admins, plz correct 'fomat' to 'format' in the 2 last poll's options. Damn my clumsy fingers Thanks.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Personaly I am not bothered with this top16 system as much as I am bothered with other things.

1. A licences
Even if Uleb is trying to build up the names in basketball I dare saying whoever built this strategy lacks mental capacity for realising the whole picture.
Prokom being awarded an A licence mostlikely (understatement) hasn't increased overall euroleague revenues, nor it will in the future, due to people getting to know the "Prokom brand". Ulker or Efes didn't increase any revenues either. Are you kidding me. With all that euroleague is narrowing their potential fan base, which also is getting tired of constantly seeing thir teams in euroleague and is pretty much spoiled enough not to attend games as much as they did even 10 years ago.
Situation in Spanish league is absurd, as you can see Bilbao obviously has no problem competing on this level, Valencia didn't neither, protecting Real, Barcelona, Unicaja and Tau will jus make the whole league regress to the extent those 4 will sooner or later regress along and we've seen how that looks like in Greece and Turkey in the past decade.
Honestly, I am banging my head on the wall for the past decade trying to understand Uleb's philosophy here and still didn't get further that the person developing as well as the ones supporting A licencing being utterly incompetent for doing their respective jobs. After a decade being prooved wrong... being prooved dead wrong with man examples described in the next paragraph I'd imagine Uleb would finaly stop.

2. Euroleague has to open itself as right now it's just missing new Fener's, Galatasaray's, Aris/Paok's, Khimki's, Kazan's, Rytas's, Cantu's, Charleroi's etc. ... trying to find some opposite examples... Zagreb comes to mind recently, obviously there aren't as many.

3. Not neccesarily the quantity, but the distribution of the euroleague spots among the countries makes it logical to expand to 32 teams. Euroleague is supposed to be the top notch competition with the best clubs and if we set up the limit up to the 24 teams, even if there would (in theory) once be 48 teams able to decently compete on this level, that stilll isn't a valid arguement for Charleroi having to go through qualie's year after year, while they obviously got the level. Meaning one less Spanish + Italian + some other team in favour of the new markets? I disagree with that as there are obviously teams with history, attendance and quality there. But for the sake of european basketball (as well as the revenues) enable some countries to step in. Belgium prooved they got what it takes to hold an EL team (at least as far as I am concerned), while there are countries that if given a chance would probably invest enough to achieve the euroleague level within few years. Without the chance they of course won't waste their money for nothing. Czecz R. Ucraine, Latvia, UK, tons of countries really. Not saying they should get a spot in EL right away, but a slim chance to actually get there would be nice enough. And that can be achieved with 32 team euroleague only. The only "con" i've heard about the 32team euroleague is money, which leads us to the next paragraph...

4. Euroleague quadrupled or multiplied by 7 it's revenues since the begining (don't remember out of my head, don't have the time to search for the citation, but it is sth. like that), while Clubs aren't getting even close to the money they got from TV rights in the old Fiba days, when they've been in charge in major part of those. Low TV rights revenue was actualy one of the main reasons for the coup. Now, either Uleb's organisation has outgrown it's actual revenues, meaning Uleb got increadibly fat or spending irrational, or the market change since the 90ies, some would say Uloeb is stashing the money in some Swiss bank, while I don't like those conspiracy theories and prefer believing they're spending their revenues on unprofitable sectors. Meaning they're either incompetent, or creating jobs european basketball doesn't actually need, but Jordi's friends do.
In any case clubs need bigger participation from TV rights. In case we're talking about 32 team euroleague, I'd understand some markets are supporting others, less profitable ones, but in 24 team euroleague, without many unprofitable "rats" their inability to share more than those few cents to few teams is unexplainable to me.

5. They're providing more top16 games in an attempt to increase the competition, yet as described in point no.1 and no.2 they were sabotaging themselves at the same goal with other methods. And while they expect there will be easier to sell TV rights if increasing the chance of Pao-Real (and other marketable giants) games, they're doing everything to decrease the quality level out of their domestic leagues (by A licences), on the long term decreasing Pao's and Real's level along as well. A saying "everything they're building with their hands, get's destroyed with their tail as they turn around" comes to my mind here. Basicaly Uleb wants to achieve more games among Barca-Real-CSKA-Maccabi-Tau-Fener-Pao-Oly-Siena, but instead they could try getting more teams like those instead, for the start, by enabling some healthy A-licence-less competition.
If they want marketable games, what exactly is wrong with playoffs (of 16 teams) being played after the top16? Be sure top16 can't achieve the TV ratings those series would.
I probably still remeber basicaly all the playoff games Olimpija has been in with remarkable details, beating Cibona and Milano for F4 in 97, losing to Pau Ortez in series after leading the regular season group in 99, beating PAOK and later goddamn Ginobili and his triples in 2001, those are still THE best memories of my team I have... top16 games can't compare with that, no way.


In the end, I believe Uleb is obviously ran by people without the guts to risk (as entrepeneurs should) or try anything different than what they're already doing and most of all, it's obviously ran by people coming from countries where basketball is considered as a marginal sport, meaning they don't believe in anything but semi-closed type of competition, let alone the Uefa's system in basketball. Being from a country where basketball is largely popular I obviously have a completely different approach. They're trying to be innovative, but they're incapable instead.
Uleb's management is the proof, that the right to fire someone from their job solely for their incompetence should be holy and basic human right!


I'd prefer system
- 16 teams in qualie's, 4 go through to EL
- 32 team regular stage; 24 teams from national championships (no licences whatsoever), 1 from eurocup, 3 past euroleague winners (meaning that the EL winner get's to play in EL for the next 3 years); in 4 groups with 8 teams
- top16; 4 groups with 4 teams; teams ranked from 16-24 move to eurocup's later stage
-eight-finals (max. 5 games)
-quarter-finals (max. 5 games)
-F4

or basicaly, copy Uefa, don't see a reason against it.


well that was a long rant, but I haven't wrote down that same stuff for over 3 years now. In 2015 I'll just copy paste it as I should've done since 2004 as basicaly same issues remain year after year.

[Billy Bounce]

Well, kudos for a post. It basically covers majority of fans complains that we used to discuss to here.

I will try to be a Devil advocate here.

1) A-licenses

With all un-sportiveness & unfairness , in my view A-licenses suits EL better then UEFA model of 5-years coefficients given to leagues based on clubs performance. What it really lacks , in my view , it's transparency.

Basically EL ranking ( with omitted TV exposure & attendance ) is 3-year analog of UEFA coefficients, with a major difference: it applied to clubs instead of leagues.

To switch EL into UEFA mode will create more problems that solutions :

Let's take last year as a example: MTA performance ( getting to finals =44 ranking points) will push the Israeli league coefs into 2-3 direct EL participants , so Galil & Jerusalem will be drawn into EL regular season. Both were terrible in Eurocup this year, so all the chances they would finish their EL regular season winless.

Because of their bad results , Israeli league loses its points & the next year ( 2012-2013) only one EL direct participant is allowed : the league champion. So in some hypothetical situation let's say Hapoel Holon will succeed to steal a win from Maccabi in BSL Final Four & to take the championship.

2012-2013 year , Maccabi is out of EL ( not a champ) , Hapoel Holon financial situation allows only 2M budget ( travel cost included) consequently the club beaten by anyone in EL regular season .

2013-2014 Israeli league loses its qualification points due to Holon failures , Maccabi significantly lowers its budget: no EL TV rights , no sponsors, public interest is down.

So UEFA-type coeffs lead to expulsion of Maccabi out of EL & losing Israeli market.

Of course some leagues will benefit from this system, let's say Russian clubs will get long awaited 2-3 direct EL spots ( on expense of Italy & France), so CSKA, Khimki, UNICS are in. The problem here is those clubs are totally dependent on its owners, so if next year Norilsk Nickel , Khimki or Kazan municipalities will cut the money flow : all three clubs will crush & will take EL down with them.

[Billy Bounce]

4. Euroleague quadrupled or multiplied by 7 it's revenues since the begining (don't remember out of my head, don't have the time to search for the citation, but it is sth. like that), while Clubs aren't getting even close to the money they got from TV rights in the old Fiba days, when they've been in charge in major part of those. Low TV rights revenue was actually one of the main reasons for the coup. Now, either Uleb's organization has outgrown it's actual revenues, meaning Uleb got incredibly fat or spending irrational, or the market change since the 90ies, some would say Uleb is stashing the money in some Swiss bank, while I don't like those conspiracy theories and prefer believing they're spending their revenues on unprofitable sectors. Meaning they're either incompetent, or creating jobs European basketball doesn't actually need, but Jordi's friends do.
In any case clubs need bigger participation from TV rights. In case we're talking about 32 team euroleague, I'd understand some markets are supporting others, less profitable ones, but in 24 team euroleague, without many unprofitable "rats" their inability to share more than those few cents to few teams is unexplainable to me.

I dunno if you remember , two years ago one of MTA owners ( Raanan Kats) leaked a complete financial report to the press. This report shed a lot of light how EL teams are earning & losing their money.

One of surprising parts of that report is the MTA don't a get a penny from EL. The biggest income ( from TV rights, ~ $2.8M) was from Sport5 channel & Hot, Yes ( Israeli TV cable providers) . That's true they sell EL games (among the others) to TV companies, but the money don't come directly from EL.

EL only loss here is that they cannot sell TV rights of Maccabi games to Israelis ( not, even via Euroleague TV ), all the other profits of selling TV rights to other countries belong to EL.

Extrapolating $2.8M for TV rights of 7M people country to the whole Europe would result in huge sums , no doubt.

To be honest I have no idea on how EL succeed to spend so much money. They did built their new headquarters in Barcelona ( rather expensive building by the look) , but what are the other expenses ?

[Joško Poljak Fan]

but, basicaly Israel has a F4 system in order to enable anyone but Maccabi winning the title once in a while, you could simply get back to the normal series, I don't see a big minus in this case.
Also most of your reasons are futile when for example things would be calculated through 3 years period and one devastating bad season wouldn't mean as much within the ratings.

Overall, while we're at it, Israel is a NET (let's call it this way) contributor to euroleague basketball for numerous years, with a short exception of Jerusalem (which deserved it's spot through UlebCup) having only one competitor in euroleague, it contributed much more than it received from it. Not being able to secure even a potential 2nd euroleague place is one of the reasons for it's cursed cycle. While in a normal system (=UEFA) imo Israel deserves a chance for a 2nd succesfull club considering Maccabi's performances (again, I do realise there is no clear succesor in Israel atm., but neither there will ever be with uleb acting like that; and that's deprimental for european basketball)
No euroleague for anyone but Maccabi -> less competitiveness -> less money -> less quality -> worse performances -> Maccabi champion again... and back to the start for another cycle

The problems you've adressed are definately fixable without much of a problem, within some clear sense, as obviosly Maccabi should only lose El spot if another team deserves it and winning the title you've been working for whole year in one game only, losing a lot due to it, doesn't really seem fair to me.


The thing that happened in Russia or Turkey, where numerous teams started spending as crazy even if their sportive motive wasn't really all that clear, isn't the normal path of the events. Normaly clubs invest money to achieve goals and participating/winning the EL being the premier goal we can rightfully assume clubs pursuing that goal will maximise their investments, even if they seem unlikely to ever do so in some period. Without numerous clubs being given a chance to participate in/win the euroleague I doubt we'll ever maximise their investments, basketball will never spread it's potential and it'll become a marginal sport of few areas instead of maintaining the no.2 in europe place which it holds at this particular moment.

Of course some leagues will benefit from this system, let's say Russian clubs will get long awaited 2-3 direct EL spots ( on expense of Italy & France), so CSKA, Khimki, UNICS are in. The problem here is those clubs are totally dependent on its owners, so if next year Norilsk Nickel , Khimki or Kazan municipalities will cut the money flow : all three clubs will crush & will take EL down with them.

I think expanding to 32 teams within euroleague would prevent that to happen and most of all, increasing the number of teams got through the qualifications decreases the % of those teams, while you can't really prevent that from happening. Basicaly that's a matter of a sofisticated competition system that would minimise chances for such events.
EL will within a while decide on the minimal budget and financial standards of it's clubs, that's basicaly another safe trigger for such cases.

And while Russia might seem to benefit the most I don't really agree as far as long term is concerned, Italy has tons of tradition and in case they're given a chance they've got their Cantu's, Varese's, Scavolini's and such... which if not given a realistic chance noone in europe will ever be aware of. Within a competitive enviroment I can't see a reason Italy wouldn't be able to get back on the 90ies level. Afterall, their level didn't decrease due to Virtus, Fortitudo and Beneton disapearing, but due to them being priviledged compared to others and as just about every organization has ups and downs, their downs were even harsher this way, with a noticable difference compared to a "fluid" uefa system that they were left without a succesor they'd normaly get to replace them. Those succesors to those ex-powerhouses were again hand-picked by criteria of marketability, Milano and Roma. Roma once again dissapeared, as long as Giorgio is alive obviously Olimpia Milano will invest, but the principle is still corrupted, rotting from the source even if shining from the outside at first.

Milano and Roma both played in relatively empty arenas. With Uleb picking the priviledged teams, they're decreasing the value of Italian Lega and interest of the fans along, not only interest of the non-el club fans, but euroleague ones as well. Apart from interest of the crowds and related income sales, teams aren't interested to actualy compete as euroleague is clearly pointing out that the major competition is out of their reach... and sooner or later the league get's suffocated by one of the priviledged euroleaguers falling out (as a normal sport procedure, yet in lots of cases a year or two two late, which makes the recovery back to the top tougher), left without a clear replacement. In case of an all-round battle for euroleague participation, there would always be a succesor and more importantly, likely a succesfull one.

Bilbao and Cantu are great examples of how the arguement of continuosity increasing the level of euroleague as their teams are able to plan ahead is pretty much relative. Euroleague is excusing itself from becoming a more UEFA like competition by claiming they're long-term increasing the level of competition by enabling their A licence teams to plan ahead for 3 years or more. That makes Bilbao and Cantu wonders, by uleb's criteria I guess ... while the cruel reality is that they're simply good enough and deserve an euroleague participation just as many other teams actually would and Uleb's continuosity is just an excuse as they lack vision, mental health or centralisation to make it the other way around.

I mean, Uleb's all about devotion. Devotion my arse. Arguably but still pretty much likely, if for example Zadar actually would be given a chance to compete with Cibona for an euroleague position, they might even get a noticable sponsor (yeah, I know the situation of Dalmatian economy, just considering the sponsor might potentialy come from other region) and might be competing in euroleague on half occasions within the last decade (Split might also step in now and than). Without a slight chance for euroleague, where Cibona played infront of empty crowds, since Jordi is basicaly one of few persons Cibona's ex-director could actualy call a friend, of course both dalmatian teams had no sponsors. Since you're a Maccabi fan I am sure you remember Jazine, they for sure don't lack devotion to basketball if anything.
Accordingly Uleb lost a potential succesor of Cibona, that is on the down half of the cycle, luckily two other teams from Zagreb are just investing a bit more, yet isn't it optimal for Uleb for 4-5 clubs all trying to achieve 1 euroleague place at once? Fans would be there, sponsors and TV would follow along and those would definately stay once one of those 4-5 teams would actualy managed to get to EL, EL gets packed arenas, competitive teams increased TV rights and increased level of basketball...

They've stopped with A licence nonsense in Croatia, but that was way too late (the reasoning also might be flawed if it only happened due to Cibona's lack of results), a lot of harm was done and they obviously haven't learned a thing from it, considering how they're acting in Spain (for god's sake, if Spanish clubs don't have the strenght to chew and spit out some of the Uleb's mental issues, than I guess noone does). Tons of examples, lots of "if's".... but overall, euroleague has in the past prooved they've been doing it wrong. maybee it would be an apropriate time to start listening of the other perspective.


If you disagree, I'm all open for opinions and suggestions as this particular Uleb's philosophy is bugging me, I'm just a human and I am (even if only rarely, it still happens ) wrong now and than, but after a decade of searching for a logic within their perception of euroleague basketball I'm starting to seriously give up on hope...

[Billy Bounce]

While in a normal system (=UEFA) imo Israel deserves a chance for a 2nd succesfull club considering Maccabi's performances (again, I do realise there is no clear succesor in Israel atm., but neither there will ever be with uleb acting like that; and that's deprimental for european basketball)
No euroleague for anyone but Maccabi -> less competitiveness -> less money -> less quality -> worse performances -> Maccabi champion again... and back to the start for another cycle

The problems you've adressed are definately fixable without much of a problem, within some clear sense, as obviosly Maccabi should only lose EL spot if another team deserves it and winning the title you've been working for whole year in one game only, losing a lot due to it, doesn't really seem fair to me.

Dunno, I don't think it's fair to give an EL spot to (let's say) Hapoel Jerusalem based on Maccabi successes, just because they belong to the same league. Let Jerusalem built their own name in Europe , gain their own ranking in Eurocup, then if they good enough for 2-3 seasons - welcome to Euroleague.

Basically it would happen, if A licenses ( or more neutral named "EL direct spots" ) was given by transparent rules according to EL own ranking .

League based coefficients ( UEFA style) suck balls when some league has 1-2 powerhouses & other teams that are well below the level of those powerhouses . Take Spanish league for example: Real & Barca gained Spain 4 Champions spots by its successes, which allowed 4-th placed Villarreal get Champions spot & be embarrassed by finishing group stage without a single win.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Dunno, I don't think it's fair to give an EL spot to (let's say) Hapoel Jerusalem based on Maccabi successes, just because they belong to the same league. Let Jerusalem built their own name in Europe , gain their own ranking in Eurocup, then if they good enough for 2-3 seasons - welcome to Euroleague.

Basically it would happen, if A licenses ( or more neutral named "EL direct spots" ) was given by transparent rules according to EL own ranking .

League based coefficients ( UEFA style) suck balls when some league has 1-2 powerhouses & other teams that are well below the level of those powerhouses . Take Spanish league for example: Real & Barca gained Spain 4 Champions spots by its successes, which allowed 4-th placed Villarreal get Champions spot & be embarrassed by finishing group stage without a single win.

You may have a valid point and country's rankings maybee aren't as good as club ones.
Yet, to my philosophy if a single club out of one country is performing great, earning a chance for another one will definately benefit to the first one. Maybee a guaranteed place isn't the answer, but a fair chance (as qualy spot) is imo fair enough. Of course ranking should be made in a way that one individual club can't earn 4 euroleague spots for his country all by himself. Also keeping a fair share of representation for as wide number of competitive leagues assures higher potential TV revenues, as well as basketball popularity through the whole continent on the long term, instead of potentialy El becoming a private Italian-Russian-Spanish-Turkish-Greek league. But still, you do have a valid point here.

Odd cases will always happen, but I prefer those to two-thirds of EL clubs being cemented year after year. I know fans of "the bigs" don't really see it that way, but majority of bball fans is kind of getting bored by same teams getting to F4 over and over again. A refreshment is never a bad thing in my opinion. And euroleague won't die if Real or Barca fail to qualify to euroleague now and than, on the opposite, even their fans will start aprecciating their participation in euroleague, while fans of other clubs might be inspired by basketball as well. As a fan of a team that is in euroleague for 15th straight season, I am sure of it, even if I wouldn't be all that pleased for this trend to stop now and than

[Billy Bounce]

Excuses for late answer

Yet, to my philosophy if a single club out of one country is performing great, earning a chance for another one will definately benefit to the first one. Maybee a guaranteed place isn't the answer, but a fair chance (as qualy spot) is imo fair enough. Of course ranking should be made in a way that one individual club can't earn 4 euroleague spots for his country all by himself. Also keeping a fair share of representation for as wide number of competitive leagues assures higher potential TV revenues, as well as basketball popularity through the whole continent on the long term, instead of potentialy El becoming a private Italian-Russian-Spanish-Turkish-Greek league. But still, you do have a valid point here.

The problem that there are huge gaps in European leagues competitiveness . I aren't sure Latvian champ VEF would fare better in EL then this year Prokom , the same goes for Ukrainian champ Budivelnik. The fans of the above clubs won't be thrilled to watch their clubs losing -20 per game to big sharks. I don't think such garbage time games will give higher TV revenues ..

On the paper, from a point of pure fairness to give every champ a equal chance sounds pretty good, but in the reality to get national champs in, would require to refuse entry of really competitive teams ( that aren't champs) from Italian-Russian-Spanish-Turkish-Greek pool.

TBH, it this type of fairness reminds me the case when certain percents of woman (or minorities) required to be present in each company, so company is forced to take worse workers (from professional point of view ) , just to ensure "fair" quota of minorities.

To make early qualies to pick a better teams from available champs will take its price too :

1) Clubs that won't be sure if they will succeed to qualify will invest less money then if they had a direct spots. Many EL clubs sign good players cheaper , just because those players want to get their exposure by playing in EL. In the case of uncertain EL spot, those players could be lured to go for money in non-EL clubs.

2) Contrary to football , majority of EL clubs ( Barca, CSKA being exceptions) re-shuffle 2/3 of their roster each year, so at the beginning of the season they play terrible ( see Khimki case this year). Many of bballers come directly out of exhausting summer playing for NTs.

3) It would be immense pressure for favorites ( on paper) to win in qulies play-offs : the whole season will be at stake on the outcome of one game at this extra early stage. On the other hand , underdogs with nothing to lose will play calm. It's a recipe for losing some quality teams & getting underdogs with a mindset of "mission accomplished" by the mere fact of qualifying.

[Billy Bounce]

I've got a idea for Euro competitions ranking . Feel free to bash its weaknesses, that's the only way to come to something worthy at the end.

Basically it combines the ideas of clubs' rankings with leagues' ones.

There are 16 leagues in ULEB :

1. Adriatic: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia
2. Austria
3. Belgium
4. Czech Republic
5. France
6. Germany
7. Greece
8. Israel
9. Italy
10. Lithuania
11. Netherlands
12. Poland
13. Russia
14. Spain
15. Switzerland
16. United Kingdom

At the end of each season , each of those leagues clubs get its point based on the number of wins/losses in Euro competitions ( EL, EC ) . Let's say something similar to the current 3-year EL ranking.

Each club will get 2 points for a win and 1 point for a loss from the Regular Season onwards. 2 bonus points are allocated for reaching the last 16, 2 bonus points are allocated for reaching the last 8, 1 bonus point is allocated for reaching the last 4, 1 bonus point is allocated for reaching the Final. The Club Ranking consists of the sum of the club coefficients from the last three years. If two or more teams have the same Club Ranking, the tie will be resolved by the total number of wins during the three year period. Should a tie persist, the final standings in the Euroleague and if necessary Eurocup from the previous season will be used to break the tie.

Each league delegates 4 its best national teams (semifinalists) to one pool ( 16*4=64 ) then the pool is sorted according to its 3-year ranking.

20 teams from the top of this list get a direct EL spot, 16 teams (placed 21-37 ) teams compete for 2 EL qualifications spots , those who fail - go to Eurocup.

The same goes for Eurocup: 20 teams (placed 23-43 after EL qualies ) get direct Eurocup spots , 16 teams ( placed 44-60 ) fight for the remaining 2 spots.

The two of remaining teams( 63, 64 ) stay in stand-by mode, with a chance to replace higher ranked teams that cannot play in Europe for some reason: not actually replace, the pool list is simply shifted up .

[Basket_]

Not sure how realible is he, but one guy in insidehoops.com forum wrote, that Euroleague will cancel A licences and "instead 16 franchises were being created. 16 clubs would be given a franchise and become a "permanent" part of a "closed league system".

More you can read there:
http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=250342

Also he wrote teams budgets in this that thread.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

@Billy Bounce; I need some spare minutes of my time, but I'm definately replying later

@Basket_; that theme has been really popular since like ... ever. Especialy among the NBA fans.
Yet, you can imagine the reaction of either Fiba or some others to such closed system. Not going to happen, or if it actually does, that could be the end of Jordi

p.s. considering he knows the budget as well as having the info that the closed permanent league is being created... say hi to VS666 for me

[Basket_]

You might be right about our old friend..

[Billy Bounce]

I'm not sure about such radical change as closed club league, but some change in EL is being cooked as we speak.

Check this for example : http://www.euroleague.net/euroleague...s/i/94796/6330

The main criterion that falls under these principles is the break-even rule, which calls for clubs to commit to not spending more than what they generate in economic activity.

The Financial Fair play rules work on concepts, based on budgeted economic performance indicators that have been extracted from the information submitted by clubs, include a minimum budget for those clubs that participate in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague competition; a maximum loss allowed over a three-year period; a limit to player expenses and shareholder´s contributions related to the overall budget; and a common approach in the treatment of some investment write-offs and in the market value of some sponsorship and advertising revenues.

I don't know if they mean to make all EL clubs finances completely transparent, but nevertheless it's quite a change .

Kudos to EL for finally abandoning their "passive watcher" approach to being some type of "local sheriff" I see a lot of bitching & moaning coming from the clubs, but at the end it will serve the interests of the competition as a whole.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Excuses for late answer



The problem that there are huge gaps in European leagues competitiveness . I aren't sure Latvian champ VEF would fare better in EL then this year Prokom , the same goes for Ukrainian champ Budivelnik. The fans of the above clubs won't be thrilled to watch their clubs losing -20 per game to big sharks. I don't think such garbage time games will give higher TV revenues ..

That is a legit concern, yet imo not big enough to prevail.
To be honest Prokom as well as Olimpija had bunch of non-bball related issues this season, which should get "fixed" with the new financial regulations to some large degree, at least from euroleague's stand point. Olimpija's situation was... well, exceptional and same could be said about Prokom. I wouldn't expect those situations to keep happening on a regular basis year after year eventhough while we're at it... in Prokom's case might've actualy been a consequence of A licencing

I believe the basics that allow some degree of optimism is the fact Ucraine and Latvia (just as an example) in the past showed some signs they'd be willing to accept the euroleague challenge. Latvians have built Riga arena up to EL standards having that purpouse in their mind along, while it happened in the past even if not the richest, still pretty wast Ucraine's economy invested heavily into some of the clubs. And I am assuming (just as confirmed in some of the cases like Turkish clubs or some others of lesser scale) the sole chance (realistic one of course) of eventually qualifying for euroleague, would increase bball funding in some of the countries. And imo euroleague holds a responsibility towards spreading basketball in europe, wihout a succesfull UK, Ucrainian, Czech or Georgian as far as I am concerned club, chances of basketball developing compared other sports are slim on the long term.

Euroleague nevertheless needs to pursue some sort of balance between quality of competition and spread of participants among various countries. I don't want to favourise either of them, yet with too closed up system I believe EL is hurting both of those on the long term.

On the paper, from a point of pure fairness to give every champ a equal chance sounds pretty good, but in the reality to get national champs in, would require to refuse entry of really competitive teams ( that aren't champs) from Italian-Russian-Spanish-Turkish-Greek pool.

I agree, yet those are getting neglected right now. I mean Bilbao barely got to euroleague due to A licences. I know i'm repeating myself, yet I don't consider the existing system balanced enough between various factors.

To make early qualies to pick a better teams from available champs will take its price too :

1) Clubs that won't be sure if they will succeed to qualify will invest less money then if they had a direct spots. Many EL clubs sign good players cheaper , just because those players want to get their exposure by playing in EL. In the case of uncertain EL spot, those players could be lured to go for money in non-EL clubs.

2) Contrary to football , majority of EL clubs ( Barca, CSKA being exceptions) re-shuffle 2/3 of their roster each year, so at the beginning of the season they play terrible ( see Khimki case this year). Many of bballers come directly out of exhausting summer playing for NTs.

3) It would be immense pressure for favorites ( on paper) to win in qulies play-offs : the whole season will be at stake on the outcome of one game at this extra early stage. On the other hand , underdogs with nothing to lose will play calm. It's a recipe for losing some quality teams & getting underdogs with a mindset of "mission accomplished" by the mere fact of qualifying.

I agree with most parts of your post.
1. true, yet imo the competition in correlation with market is more succesfull at determinating which team should participate in EL than group of officials for example selecting Ulker and Efes as the most deserving clubs, while in case Uleb would let the "market/competition" decide those teams would sooner or later (I assume in the past 10 years, that replacement would definately be sooner than it was) get replaced with Fener, Galatasaray, Besiktas. Uleb's been lucky that an unpredicted evolution of the events let Fener in. Or as an alternative, if Tofas Bursa or Telekom Ankara would manage to attract larger fan base, budgets, TV coverage, overall interest, let them fight in for an euroleague spot. Who knows, maybee Ankara might become a 3 peat consecutive El champ 2015-2018 afterall in 90ies noone considered CSKA to get there somewhere either and Ural Great might get some undeserved priviledges instead. In the long term, securing a team with consecutive EL appearances might benefit them, financial stability and marketing those clubs is a bit easier, but in most cases competition imo provides far better outcomes.
I was wondering if hypothetical, Telekom Bonn would for example get an A licence just 6-7 years ago and maybee they'd be able to secure enough funds to become "the only" German powerhouse and EL team, would Alba and Bayern be actualy motivated to invest as much as they do nowadays? I think they wouldn't be and that would be a long term loss for German basketball, which of course can't lead to anything but a loss for euroleague basketball.

Imo euroleague's belief that optimising the financial attractivity "for their participants only" has some noticable downwards efects, when compared to optimising the financial attractivity for larger group of teams that would be battleing for euroleague in consecutive seasons. Of course that doesn't neccesarily apply to all the leagues, but to the big ones, which afterall represent majority of EL basketball. And anything but the "long term" can imo be just a temporary solution.

2. Imo in case some of the clubs (mostly EL participants) wouldn't be priviledged they actually wouldn't be able to afford that, as they'd have to compete with others, providing longer-term deals accordingly. This way CSKA basicaly shouldn't care about switching half of their roster since they're aware most of them can't compete with ther finances anyway. I am aware some teams would get some harsh blows due to what you're saying, but eventually it'll just demand more long term planning from them and lest instantly put together teams.

3. I would love that, as that might mean a Belgium team has more chances to qualify to EL, eventually rising the state of basketball in one more country, instead of euroleague being in domain of those 12-13 countries as it's the case for the past 20 years. Imo those upsets are part of the sports and what makes sport succes that sweet. Atm i can't see many sweeter or more beneficial (bball wise) outsomes as Bayern, Crvena Zvezda or some other heavily supported club (Galatasaray happened already!) qualifying to euroleague through qualifications and imo those cases will prevail compared to financialy supported clubs without fans qualifying instead, afterall european basketball is big enough for that level of competition.
At the end it's all about the fans and devotion, € and competition level comes along that and not neccesarily the other way around.
To make myself clearer, to me Zadar >>>>>>> Khimki, even if the dalmatians fall into Croatian 4th league and Khimki qualifies to F4, as they've got an army of fanatical fans Khimki can only dream of and their fanbase probably produced more euroleague bball players than any other EL club does atm (arguable, but not neccesarily far from truth).
When fans will be Uleb's first concern, finances will come along and what's better for fans than a hope their team might actually do it someday... even if only in 10 years or so?


The mentality I'm supporting here, might end up pretty badly for my fav team in the worst case scenario, but than again, without a system like the one I'm arguing for in this thread, Olimpija's rise to El in 90ies would be nearly impossible, hypotheticaly tons of players wouldn't end up what they eventualy did and Ljubljana would still be a primarily hockey town as the case from 60ies to 90ies. Things change and evolve and Uleb should aknowledge that. Old powerhouses can in a matter of decade or two, become forgotten, that's the cycle of evolution

[Billy Bounce]

@JPF
Excuses . It's my turn to take time-out. I'm definately replying later

[Joško Poljak Fan]

hehe I completely understand... at the end of the debate (my guess that might be somewhere in january 2013) we might as well publish a book out of all that