European League Evaluation Thread

[adebisi]

don't remember if there where NBA games, cause I don't follow them
But it changes from year to year, depending on money some TV's has

I guess damelo is talking about 2005/2006 season. We had a lot of NBA games on TV due to 5 lithuanians that year (Jaskevičius, Macijauskas, Ilgauskas, Songaila, Kleiza). Also high school championship ("Karūna") was brodcasted if I remember correctly. Students League (LSKL) should be counted as well... 300 games per year sounds reaaally alot, but IMO it might be...

[re5pectas]

I guess damelo is talking about 2005/2006 season. We had a lot of NBA games on TV due to 5 lithuanians that year (Jaskevičius, Macijauskas, Ilgauskas, Songaila, Kleiza). Also high school championship ("Karūna") was brodcasted if I remember correctly. Students League (LSKL) should be counted as well... 300 games per year sounds reaaally alot, but IMO it might be...

Yeah, I remember, there were games on TV every day, but still, season is not THAT long (not 300 days per year...). Anyway, prety much

[damelo]

this was approximative, but considering there is 40 weeks in the season, with the numbers you announced, it makes like 200 games. then you ad NBA games.
then NT games. You may be around 250. I didn't mention the playoffs, because 200 must be little bigger than reality, so let's include playoffs in it.
Well, after, if you include the law and etc... I don't know.

[LuDux]

January 2006:
Euroleague - 12 games
NBA - 7 games
BBL/LKL - 5 games
NKLyga - 4 games
Women EL - 1 game
Total - 29 games
including repeats - 41 game
source: "Basketball on TV" from magazine "Krepsinis"

[special-thanks-2]

TV Coverage in Italy is damn good:

- Serie A on Sky Sports (pay tv): usually 3/4 games per week, therefore 12/16 games per month;

- LegaDue on Raisport (free channel): 2 games per week, so 8 games per month

Many local channels (free on the satellite) broadcast Serie A games (not live, obviously) during the week.

- Euroleague on Sky Sports (pay tv): 4 games per week, sometimes 5.

- NBA on Sky Sports (pay tv): 2 games per week.

- NBA on SportItalia: through NBA TV broadcasts 1 game every night and offers the retransmission the following afternoon.

- NCAA on Rai Sport (free tv): 1 game per week, but broadcasted much more games for the Tournament.

- NCAA on NASN (pay tv).

[Afraid]

January 2006:
Euroleague - 12 games
NBA - 7 games
BBL/LKL - 5 games
NKLyga - 4 games
Women EL - 1 game
Total - 29 games
including repeats - 41 game
source: "Basketball on TV" from magazine "Krepsinis"

its fun that theres only 5 bbl/lkl games and 4 NKL games in one month

[rikhardur]

- Serie A on Sky Sports (pay tv): usually 3/4 games per week, therefore 12/16 games per month;

- LegaDue on Raisport (free channel): 2 games per week, so 8 games per month

Many local channels (free on the satellite) broadcast Serie A games (not live, obviously) during the week.

If I remember correctly, a couple of years ago Rai Uno and Rai Due used to broadcast Lega A games as well as Eurobasket and so right? It was a pity that those games were transferred to pay TV or regional channels.

[re5pectas]

I guess we went to off topic

giang, continue your thoughts

[qiangdade]

Russian Superliga

bare with me for mistakes, i don't know much about the league
Edit: Goga's take in red and he knows better

1.Arenas
Afaik Cska and Dinamo play in 5k arenas while Ural Great and Unics Kazan use 7k arenas. The rest is unknown to me, my best guess is that they are smaller and old.

The arenas aren't top notch and the atmosphere isn't really good in most of the matches.

Evaluation: 4

2.Attendancies
Don't enough about the whole league. In UC Dinamo usually fills the arena i think and so does CSKA.

You see quite a lot of empty seats. Not so during CSKA Euroleague games.

Evaluation: 4

3.Competitiveness
I think the lower level teams are really no match to the 5-6 more powerful ones. Yet in the top places there seems to be decent competition.

That's true. A bad example of consistency.

Evaluation: 5

4.Organization
I really know almost nothing. The site looks nice though no english

The organisation within the teams is quite good to very good. The organisation from the Federation isn't good although it is improving. In the past, there have been lots of debates about referees that have worked their way in favour of CSKA. Plus, the Federation does the same dirty trick. For example, the rule was that each Superliga team was limited to six foreigners. But as soon as CSKA managed to resign Papaloukas, the limit was set to seven.

Evaluation: 4

5.Stability
Top level teams seem to be pretty consistent as well as some of the smaller ones. Haven't heard anything bad about the league. I'll take a guess giving a 6.

Do you remember the St. Petersburg Lions that have participated in the inaugural Euroleague season? Or Dynamo St. Petersburg that got the FIBA Euroleague title with no losses during the season? Where are they now? Has Unics sustained its budget? Of course, smaller teams are able to get some European-level name players and CSKA, Dynamo and Khimki are off the charts with their yearly increasing budgets.

Evaluation: 5

6.Successes
Russia wasn't given the room to have many successes due to the limited uleb spots in comparison to the league's potential. Yet CSKA holds the record for most f4 participations in a row with only 1 title though. They also seem to be doing good in the UC. Only 2 titles though...

CSKA has won the Euroleague and participated in the 1996 Final Four and 2001 Suproleague Final Four. There has also been the poisoning scandal in 1995, which prevented CSKA from advancing to yet another Final Four. Dynamo Moscow has won the Uleb Cup, while Dynamo St. Petersburg has won the Fiba Euroleague, where it had beaten Khimki in the Final Four. Khimki has participated twice in the Final Four in this competition. Ural Great has won the FIBA Challenge Cup. Dynamo participated in Euroleague competition once and reached the 1/4 finals. Before the introduction of post-Top 16 rounds, Ural Great has reached this stage during its one and only Euroleague debut season. Given the number of opportunities, I consider Russian teams to have fared very well.

Evaluation: 5

7.Number of EL level teams
CSKA, Dinamo, Unics and Khimki imo

Unics is by no means a Euroleague team as of now.

Evaluation: 7

8.Number of UC level teams
2 maybe even 3 imo again

Dynamo, Unics, Khimki, Triumph.

Evaluation: 4

9.Public interest
As far as i know bball lies behind football and hockey in Russia. The recent NT success may spark some interest. I don't know anything about the broadcastings. My note will be a guess

There is still enough basketball on TV. At least, one Superleague per week, plus all Euroleague games with participation of Russian teams. www.sportbox.ru is broadcasting some additional games online. There are lots of reports in newspapers and online news agencies. In-deep reports.

Evaluation: 6

10.Budgets
CSKA consistently has the biggest budget in Europe whereas the other russian powerhouses also have budgets bigger than 10mil. I don't know about the smaller teams but 5 teams with budgets that big are enough for me.

Budgets of Russian teams are really high. You can rank them higher.

Evaluation: 8



overall: 52/100

[goga78]

Russian Superliga

bare with me for mistakes, i don't know much about the league

1.Arenas
Afaik Cska and Dinamo play in 5k arenas while Ural Great and Unics Kazan use 7k arenas. The rest is unknown to me, my best guess is that they are smaller and old.

Evaluation: 4

The arenas aren't top notch and the atmosphere isn't really good in most of the matches.

2.Attendancies
Don't enough about the whole league. In UC Dinamo usually fills the arena i think and so does CSKA.

Evaluation: ?

You see quite a lot of empty seats. Not so during CSKA Euroleague games.


3.Competitiveness
I think the lower level teams are really no match to the 5-6 more powerful ones. Yet in the top places there seems to be decent competition.

Evaluation: 5

That's true. A bad example of consistency.


4.Organization
I really know almost nothing. The site looks nice though no english

Evaluation: ?

The organisation within the teams is quite good to very good. The organisation from the Federation isn't good although it is improving. In the past, there have been lots of debates about referees that have worked their way in favour of CSKA. Plus, the Federation does the same dirty trick. For example, the rule was that each Superliga team was limited to six foreigners. But as soon as CSKA managed to resign Papaloukas, the limit was set to seven.

5.Stability
Top level teams seem to be pretty consistent as well as some of the smaller ones. Haven't heard anything bad about the league. I'll take a guess giving a 6.

Evaluation: 6

Do you remember the St. Petersburg Lions that have participated in the inaugural Euroleague season? Or Dynamo St. Petersburg that got the FIBA Euroleague title with no losses during the season? Where are they now? Has Unics sustained its budget? Of course, smaller teams are able to get some European-level name players and CSKA, Dynamo and Khimki are off the charts with their yearly increasing budgets.

6.Successes
Russia wasn't given the room to have many successes due to the limited uleb spots in comparison to the league's potential. Yet CSKA holds the record for most f4 participations in a row with only 1 title though. They also seem to be doing good in the UC. Only 2 titles though...

Evaluation: 5

CSKA has won the Euroleague and participated in the 1996 Final Four and 2001 Suproleague Final Four. There has also been the poisoning scandal in 1995, which prevented CSKA from advancing to yet another Final Four. Dynamo Moscow has won the Uleb Cup, while Dynamo St. Petersburg has won the Fiba Euroleague, where it had beaten Khimki in the Final Four. Khimki has participated twice in the Final Four in this competition. Ural Great has won the FIBA Challenge Cup. Dynamo participated in Euroleague competition once and reached the 1/4 finals. Before the introduction of post-Top 16 rounds, Ural Great has reached this stage during its one and only Euroleague debut season. Given the number of opportunities, I consider Russian teams to have fared very well.


7.Number of EL level teams
CSKA, Dinamo, Unics and Khimki imo

Evaluation: 7

Unics is by no means a Euroleague team as of now.


8.Number of UC level teams
2 maybe even 3 imo again

Evaluation: 4

Dynamo, Unics, Khimki, Triumph.

9.Public interest
As far as i know bball lies behind football and hockey in Russia. The recent NT success may spark some interest. I don't know anything about the broadcastings. My note will be a guess

Evaluation: 4

There is still enough basketball on TV. At least, one Superleague per week, plus all Euroleague games with participation of Russian teams. www.sportbox.ru is broadcasting some additional games online. There are lots of reports in newspapers and online news agencies. In-deep reports.

10.Budgets
CSKA consistently has the biggest budget in Europe whereas the other russian powerhouses also have budgets bigger than 10mil. I don't know about the smaller teams but 5 teams with budgets that big are enough for me.

Evaluation: 8

Budgets of Russian teams are really high. You can rank them higher.

No overall yet, we must agree first

That's my take on the Superliga.

[qiangdade]

Lithuania

1.Arenas
11k Siemens Arena of Rytas, 5500 cap beautiful Siauliai Arena, the current 5k arena of Zalgiris and then afaik arenas up to 2000. I understand new arenas are being built for the Eurobasket, but for now this is poor.

Evaluation: 4

2.Attendancies
My guess is that every game is sold-out. Yet most teams play in tiny arenas.

Evaluation: 5

3.Competitiveness
When i followed the league few months back for the fantasy challenge i noticed that zalgiris were crushing the rest with 40 or 50 point margins.

Evaluation: 5

4.Organization
Liths probs know better

Evaluation: 6

5.Stability
Haven't heard anything negative, i guess all runs smoothly but again i see no other team to rise and match the big duo

Evaluation: 6

6.Successes
As far as i remember 1 EL title for Zalgiris in 1999 and 1 UC for Rytas. Can't recall f4 participations. Given the size of the country and the budgets this is more than decent.

Evaluation: 5

7.Number of EL level teams
Daah...2

Evaluation: 5

8.Number of UC level teams
eeer...1?(siauliai)

Evaluation: 3

9.Public interest
Bball seems to be more important than religion (i actually agree and wish it was like that everywhere), lol

Evaluation: 7

10.Budgets
Zalgiris and Rytas with about 5 mil and the rest less than 1mil. Pretty poor

Evaluation: 2

Overall: 48/100

[qiangdade]

Goga would you say russia is fair like this? Since you watch and follow the league you probably know better

[goga78]

Goga would you say russia is fair like this? Since you watch and follow the league you probably know better

You know, I didn't grade the league but I took your evaluation as basis for my comments :-) In some cases, I've tried to make a better impression of the Superliga, in some worse. Teams are not only not generating any profit in Russia, they lose lots of money. They are very much dependent on single personalities. If their main sponsor decides to stop the money influx, basketball will be dead in that town. Albeit, I don't see it happen too soon, as main sponsors are either oil and nickel billionaires or governors of federal areas. Actually, the governors don't have to donate any money, they just "give hints" to industrial magnates in their area. For such a big country as russia, 13 teams (or less as projected) is clearly not enough. Moscow and close surroundings alone do have four teams (CSKA, Dynamo, Khimki, Triumph). Samara is not too far away either. Then your have a couple of spots in the south and in the east. St. Petersburg has a deeply rooted basketball school but Spartak isn't doing any good. Too bad, as the city on Neva has produced lots of great players, such as Alexander Belov, the whole generation of 1990ies (Karassev, Kissourin, Panov, Fetissov...), Andrei Kirilenko, Anton Ponkrashov etc. Basically, basketball is centered around Moscow with a few exceptions.

As to the fan culture, it has grown in my opinion but not to the extent of Spanish teams, PAO or Maccabi. When Euroleague games of CSKA are sold our (more or less) it's not because everyone sitting in the arena is so profound with basketball but because it's cool to go there to watch CSKA win (once again). For me, real fans go through good and bad times with their team. Haven't seen it in Russia yet. Kazan and Perm used to have sold-out gyms this decade. Not anymore.

However, I would surely consider the trend in Russian basketball tió be a positive one. Lots of Russians are playing in the league and some of them are doing it quite successfully. Of course, it has sth. to do with the rules (two Russian players have to be on court all the time) and the fact that Russian players, especially marquee ones, can hardly be found playing abroad, unless we are talking about the NBA. Well, only Andrei Kirilenko is left there, too. At the same time, Russian clubs are quite powerful right now, so why go abroad? Actually, most Russian players who have done so, have more or less failed, such as Chikalkin and Avleev. In the 1990ies, the story was different, as Babkov, Bazarevich, Kissourin, Nossov, Mikhailov, Fetissov and Karassev have done very good outside of Russia.

[Lietuvis]

Lithuania

1.Arenas
11k Siemens Arena of Rytas, 5500 cap beautiful Siauliai Arena, the current 5k arena of Zalgiris and then afaik arenas up to 2000. I understand new arenas are being built for the Eurobasket, but for now this is poor.

Evaluation: 4

2.Attendancies
My guess is that every game is sold-out. Yet most teams play in tiny arenas.

Evaluation: 7

3.Competitiveness
When i followed the league few months back for the fantasy challenge i noticed that zalgiris were crushing the rest with 40 or 50 point margins.

Evaluation: 4

4.Organization
Liths probs know better

5.Stability
Haven't heard anything negative, i guess all runs smoothly but again i see no other team to rise and match the big duo

Evaluation: 6

6.Successes
As far as i remember 1 EL title for Zalgiris in 1999 and 1 UC for Rytas. Can't recall f4 participations. Given the size of the country and the budgets this is more than decent.

Evaluation: 5

7.Number of EL level teams
Daah...2

Evaluation: 5

8.Number of UC level teams
eeer...1?(siauliai)

Evaluation: 3

9.Public interest
Bball seems to be more important than religion (i actually agree and wish it was like that everywhere), lol

Evaluation: 10

10.Budgets
Zalgiris and Rytas with about 5 mil and the rest less than 1mil. Pretty poor

Evaluation: 3

I think this post is about to get trashed...

[re5pectas]

I will be a bit strict on Lithuania:

1.Arenas
With the same reason evaluation 3.

2.Attendancies
We are talking about LKL, it's not sold out, also tiny arenas... I would give 5-6

3.Competitiveness
big duo is above others, but competitiveness in middle of table is really tough. So here I would give a little bit more 5 - 6

4.Organization
Website could be better, but we have so many, that we don't really need it from them, live scores is enough Organisation of games I guess is not bad, but I would like to hear someone, who goes to games not in Vilnius or Kaunas. Still most problems comes from poorness. And they could try to attract more ppl to thier league.
6, imo

5.Stability
Well, it's stable. really, 10 years in a row two teams fights in final, and Siauliai always for the 3rd place, sometimes they fail joking
anyway, all cities are interested in having a team, and if they struggle in finances, everyone is trying to work on this problem. Basketball federation also. So I would rank stability higher, maybe 7 or 8.

6.Successes
Well, if you say so But I'm not so satisfied - 3

7.Number of EL level teams
Yep, two, but 2 of 10, so the mark: 3(or even 2)

8.Number of UC level teams
Siauliai. 1 of 8(10-2), mark - 2(or even 1)

9.Public interest
This is the most difficult one. And tricky. We are talking about LKL. Interest in basketball overall is huge. Yes. But I'm not so sure about LKL. This stability of leaders decreases the interest in league, also only one or no games per week on TV. Personally for me Baltic league is more interesting, cause teams are more stronger. Anyway, my evaluation is lower - 7 or even 6.

10.Budgets
All true. But i would evaluate in 2.



Waiting for comments
P.S. it is so much worse than Israeli league

[special-thanks-2]

If I remember correctly, a couple of years ago Rai Uno and Rai Due used to broadcast Lega A games as well as Eurobasket and so right? It was a pity that those games were transferred to pay TV or regional channels.

That's right, Rai Sport used to broadcast Serie A games (a couple each week), but more than two years ago, I'd say 4 or 5. Now it broadcasts LegaDue (as I wrote before, 2 games per week), NCAA and most of the games of the National Team.

[Basket_]

6.Successes
As far as i remember 1 EL title for Zalgiris in 1999 and 1 UC for Rytas. Can't recall f4 participations. Given the size of the country and the budgets this is more than decent.

Also Zalgiris won European cup in 1998.

[qiangdade]

Also Zalgiris won European cup in 1998.

You're right i forgot about that.

@Re5pectas: It seems you are harsher than me and most liths haven't bashed me for my evaluation yet as i expected

[LuDux]

You're right i forgot about that.

@Re5pectas: It seems you are harsher than me and most liths haven't bashed me for my evaluation yet as i expected

We like to be bashed and to bash themselves

[re5pectas]

You're right i forgot about that.

@Re5pectas: It seems you are harsher than me and most liths haven't bashed me for my evaluation yet as i expected

True I hope and waiting some liths will express thier opinion