I really like the original approach made by qiangdade. Not so much because of the resulting score, which is very much a personal view, but describing the league in 10 categories enables to compare strenghts and weaknesses of different leagues.
Germany - BBL
1.Arenas
The minimum capacity is 3000. The league's avarage capacity is 4750. There has been a trend to build new, modern, mostly multi purpose arenas in the last years to leave the training hall image of the 1990s behind. Of course Berlin's NBA-style o2-World is an outstanding landmark (14.800, opened 2008). Bamberg (6.800, opened 2005), Braunschweig (6.600, opened 2000) Bonn (6.000, 2008), Trier (5.900, 2003) Oldenburg (3.200, 2005) are better examples of the league's mainstream arena. Other new arenas are currently being built or in the pipeline (Ludwigsburg, 7000; Frankfurt 11000, Ulm 5000). There's not more than a handful of teams playing in traditional sport complexes.
Evaluation: 6
2.Attendances
Number four in Europe last season one of the league's assets clearly are the average attendances. Close to 3500 spectators came last season. With new arenas in Berlin and Bonn the numbers will rise even further. Becoming No. 2 in Europe seems to be possible this season. Berlin will show over 10.000 per game now, Bamberg over 6000, Bonn over 5000. More than 100 sold old games with 3000 in a row in Quakenbrück (12.500 population)... But on the downside, there's a handful of teams where average numbers stay around 2.500 and the attendances in European competitions are below the league avarages (except Euroleague in Berlin and Bamberg).
Evaluation: 6
3.Competitiveness
Within the league the competition is high. Possibly, the phrase most often uttered by coaches is that any team can defeat any other. Four different champs in four years, playoff surprises and frequent Cinderella stories make the league close and unpredictable. But on a multi year perspective the league can be seen as divided in three categories, a handful of teams being constant playoff participants, a broad midfield fighting for reaching the playoffs and a handful of teams struggling to stay in the league or being neither a close to playoffs nor have to fear relegation. Additionally when compared to the european level, the league's sportive level is clearly below average quality.
Evaluation: 4
4.Organization
It differs between clubs. The top clubs probably belong to the clubs with the best organization in Europe while the smaller ones are still quite amateurish. The league organization itself increased their professionalism level during the last years building up a branded U19-league, common standards, an excellent Allstar-Event (crowds around 10.000), obligatory (8% of player salaries) and partially joint funding (a fee per signed player is redistributed according to youngsters' playing time) of youth players (approx. >3 mio. €) but it still lacks some seriousness when it comes to building up a league brand and joint marketing and sponsoring.
Evaluation: 4
5.Stability
The league's minimum budget of 1.000.000 € grants a basic stability. With very rare exceptions salaries are paid in full and on time. There has been one insolvency last season (Cologne) but even in that case the team was able to play the season. The current financial crisis in Giessen did only affect player salaries in so far as they were partly paid a week late. There might arise stability problems in small budget clubs once in a while but overall the league is stable, reliable, the clubs have liquidity and the league's office really tries to wipe out any remaining risk factors. The standards are so strict and high, that teams being promoted from the second division waive their right and relegated teams stay in the league. (Evaluation 9) But I have to downrank the evaluation due to the fact that one insolvency and a near insolvency took place. (Eval. 6)
Additionally there's a huge player movement taking place every off-season. The German BBL is something of a transitional stage for a lot of players coming out of the US or minor leagues and wanting to move on to the European top leagues or even the NBA. This affects the sportive stability of a majority of the clubs to a great extent as players with multi year contracts are a rare exception. Many clubs have to start new building a team every single season.
Evaluation: 4
6.Successes
1 Korac-Cup title, one El-Top16, one Ulebcup Quarterfinal, very few other journeys in the elimination rounds. Mostly Germany's clubs internationally lost and showed poor to disastrous performances even in group stage.
Evaluation: 1
7.El level teams
Currently only Berlin as Bamberg is restructuring itself sportively and probably financially right now.
Evaluation: 2
8. Eurocup level teams
Probably any of the top 4-5 teams should have Eurocup level and budgets. Due to lack of success in the group stage in the last years I give this some doubt and say: 2.
Evaluation: 5
9.Public Interest
It's clearly team sports number four behind Football, Handball, Icehockey... The media at large has some difficulties to get attracted to Basketball in Germany. And even if they feature Basketball, NBA and Nowitzki seem to reach a wider interest. With its own Pay TV channel in cable networks, satellite and internet more than 100 live games (incl. every playoff game) are featured and the public free TV stations use the pictures infrequently in regional sports magazines. No regular free TV coverage. Two monthly print mags have been started within the last two years. The trend is positive, but compared to other sports it's still poor.
Evaluation: 2
10.Budgets
ALBA Berlin is the sole champ in this category with close to 8 mil euro. Bamberg had something close to 6 mio euro in the past years. The league average is rumored to be 2,75 mio euro (total budget) with a third of the clubs being constantly over 3 mio, a third having something close to the average and a third being just over the minimum budget of 1 mio euro (in the range of 1 to 1.6 mio). The total amount of gross player salaries is rumored to be slightly above 30 mio. € for 18 clubs. Multimillion-Dollar-contracts are unheard of, the very top players are rumored to have landed contracts for something around USD 600.000.
Evaluation: 6
Final evaluation: 40/100
Caveat: There are some major inconsistencies in the evaluation if you compare the points to what was given to other countries before. The organization (especially considered website etc.) is way better than the Greek league. If Greece with a history of not paying players on time or at all gets 4 points in stability and Italy with two relegated teams 5 points, the BBL has to be evaluated higher. @qiangdade, due to the fact that your old evaluations were mostly based on last season, could you just update a new overview?
Last edited by Gruebler; 10-27-2008 at 11:34 PM.
+1 to Gruebler for the evaluation of the BBL. Really nice
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I cant see the german basketball gets to the top.. I mean.. beside dirk.. im talking about the league,
how ALBA with 8 mill euro isnt' doing good things in the EL, and getting beat up every year,
how come big country like German isnt in the top?
simply strange.
First, I think there's one very easy answer to it: cost. High taxes, high infrastructural cost. A big part of the clubs budget doesn't go into players net salaries.Originally Posted by Iverson.A
Additionally due to the lack of internationally competitive German players (together they amount for less than 20% of all minutes played) the clubs have to buy foreign talent. But most clubs lack the financial abilities to bind those players for more than one or two years. Good US players simply earn more in southern and eastern Europe where their number is limited. ALBA and Oldenburg just started to try to build up lasting teams.
Third: The German league itself relies heavily on US players (70% of all minutes played are played by US nationals) and therefore, as Coach Pavicevic put it once, the league features a basketball style that is neither European, nor really NBA/D-League. I just guess that that style is simply not competitive in the european competitions.
Fourth: The fluctuation within the team's rosters is immense. Last season the average team hired 10 new players.
Edit: Numbers verified.
Last edited by Gruebler; 10-27-2008 at 11:21 PM.
That's essentially exactly what you are doing though. Obviously basing the league on just the last 16 teams stage. Because before that it's very weak. If you count the whole entirety of the league it really cannot be taken seriously as the 2nd best league IMO. If you make that argument then why is the Greek League not ranked as the best league over Spain?
It has superior teams at the top generally, but people say well at the lower teams or depth Spain is better. Eurocup has some awful teams and for the first 3 stages is quite weak.
Yeah Eurocup has Khimki and Dynamo big deal so does Russia. It has Aris and some mid level Spanish clubs - again big deal so does Spain and Greece.
Now YES at top 16 stage it would be the 2nd best league, but are we to ignore ALL previous rounds when adding and rating the league in its entirety? It does not add up when we choose to rank other leagues on the their value from top to bottom.
Fourth : in Germany, soccer & handball are way more popular (so is soccer & rugby in france or great britain, so is soccer & volley in poland i would say etc.)
What is positive though if we stick with Germany, is that there are some changes (and not only in alba) and some interesting prospects & young talents that might have a chance to develop in the following years (if they don't end up in real, barcelona etc. junior teams).
anyway it has been said so many times that i almost feel bad voicing it again, there is a huge gap between southern & northern europe (minus the baltic countries) in respect to basketball.
And thinking you can develop a market relying only on "mature" markets is quite optimistic. What would help the most in developing european basketball is a salary cap, the rest would follow (as you would not see such a gap between poor teams and richest ones, nor would you risk to see old stronholds of european basketball risking to disappear for desperatly trying to stay in the budget race).
@Raph. So how would you analyse the French league? As limited as my knowledge of your league is, I'd guess its problems, weaknesses and strenghts should be quite similar to the German league?
I only count the regular season not the qualification rounds. Why count the qualification rounds they are not regular season games IMO. In the regular season you have a lot of teams who are better then some bottom euroleague teams sure you have some bad ones but they are still good(or on par) teams compared to the worst of the spanish greek teams IMO.
Nowadays yes. Our league chose to increase the number of american in rosters (up to 4 now) which is ruining year after year the development of our young prospects and the old strongholds which used to have the best french players and among the best foreigners.
What is worst is that germany keeps improving while we keep weakening (i don't have to remind the results of our teams in europe since a few years, we can add the result of the NT now). Germany has really good assets to progress quite fast (huge arenas thanks to the other professional leagues (handball), high budget teams in big cities (something we miss, cept for ASVEL). Good media coverage as well (DSF can be seen everywhere i guess? + other medias)
Well to sum up, if i had to bet on a future interesting market, i would bet on germany. Except if we manage to kick the idiots who are ruling our french federation (in italy or anywhere else, they (they would) quit, in france they are main candidate for the new election)
But am I wrong saying France has now more top players than ever before?
Die Liebe wird eine Krankheit, wenn man sie als eine Heilung sieht
Artificial Nature
Not a single arena of the current BBL arenas is shared with a 1st div. handball team. But there are an additional 15+ arenas in Germany which exist due to handball/icehockey. (See "10.000+ arenas in europe"-thread).
In regards to TV, see above. League only on cable pay TV or web stream, DSF no longer shows the league, only NT.
PS: I put a caveat under my original evaluation post as after reading every single post here my ranking seems to be imbalanced in certain aspects to earlier evaluations of other leagues. The German league might finish stronger. Not for sportive reasons but for economic and infrastructural ones. But that's for @qiangdade to decide, as he set forth the standards for the rating.
@Raph's bet is nothing I'd put money against. There are some early signals that the basketball quality slowly starts to increase in Germany based on a sound financial and organizational foundation that has developed over the last decade or so. Especially as other leagues as a whole show slight signs of stagnation or even depression (Akasvayu, Italy etc.).
Last edited by Gruebler; 10-27-2008 at 11:25 PM.
I disagree at this point. A 9 means you're doing almost the best you can, and most ACB teams are far away from that. Not to mention some stupiod decisions like shorten the playoff QF and SF series to 3 games. I wouldn't give any more than a 7.
By the way acb.com should have an english version, at least for the basics.
Sure! You can find that on the homepage of LegaI agree with that
btw. I was just wondering, are there maybee any sites that could give an aproximate picture about attendance in italian lega?
07-08 season (PDF)
06-07 season (PDF)
05-06 season (PDF)
the columns data are: Team, Games played, Total attendance, Total takings, Attendance average, Takings average.
On the last row you can find the overall total of the league.
Unfortunately no. Top quality players are generally going where they can get the best contract and that's something you can not find in france (it used to be the case for a while in the 90ies when competition was with lega, mta, acb and at that time we had much deeper rosters (well 'cept boza's limoges's roster) imo ).
wow, thanks man
I almost gave up on that question.
considering the economical circumstances the best leagues in the long term will be the ones that'll attract the most spectators...
Spanish ACB League Is Totally Overrated
I have said it before that the main thing that makes the ACB the "best domestic league in Europe" is the arenas, the attendance, the budget, the organization, the website, the free online games, etc. Not necessarily the play on the court.
I don't know why everyone is so convinced of how the ACB is so far ahead in play and competition of every other league. I have said it before, it probably is the best in the play and competition, but it's just barely ahead of other good leagues like A1, Adriatic, VTB.
There is just no reason for the nonsense that is talked about in this forum. I remember all last year hearing how "Valencia would make the playoffs or final four of Euroleague". Well they have a much better roster this year and they are not doing anything. This is Euroleague, not Eurocup or ACB.
I remember last year the board was full of posts how the worst team in the ACB was "better than Maroussi". Last year's Maroussi...........
The board was full of posts last year with crazy claims about how Malaga could win about any other league, how Real would win the A1 and on and on.
Anytime the subject of ACB and other leagues comes up, you get these comments like "the last place team in ACB would finish 3rd in Greece and 2nd in Italy".
Not to mention all the "Barca is the greatest team in the history of Europe" comments that went on all year. Yes, the same Barca that got swept 3-0 in the ACB playoffs by Vitoria.
Well, this year the comments are basically similar. We have the discussion about "which is the 2nd best league", not even considering that any other league can touch the ACB.
OK, last year the A1 teams performed better on average than the ACB clubs in Euroleague/Eurocup, based on the points system ULEB uses. Sure, A1 is weaker this year. So is the ACB and it was overrated to begin with.
Also, TBL and Adriatic are noticeably stronger this year. And I think Serie A is a bit better too.
We don't have the Eurocup season yet to look at, but so far from what we have seen in the Euroleague it clearly shows that the ACB is extremely overrated. Is it the best in things not related to competition? Yes.
Is it the best in competition? Probably, but it's not that much better than the other good leagues at all.
Barca is really no better than the other top clubs. They were just hot last year during the Euroleague. We see there real level more in the ACB finals, this year, in the game against the Lakers, etc. A very top level elite team, but certainly no way in hell "the greatest team in the history of Europe".
Real isn't that great. Same with Vitoria. These are for sure Top 16 teams and should be playoff teams. They certainly do not seem like the are Final Four material at all.
Malaga is an average team and nothing more. Valencia, the same team that all last year come people were saying in this forum would be a top 5-10 Euroleague team is a team that at best can challenge for the Top 16.
And what else is there in ACB? Teams like Joventut, Bilbao, Sevilla, etc., etc. These teams that so many people in this forum claim are so competitive, that they are all good, they would all be top teams in any other league, they all are better than almost any team in any other league, etc.......
Basically people say that of every ACB team. This is absolutely ridiculous. Outside of Bilbao none of those other teams would actually compete for things people claim. Like 2nd place in Italy or 3rd place in Greece.
Also, this constant talk that even the worst ACB team is better than almost all other teams from other leagues? Oh really? What is so good about these other teams? I really don't see it at all. It's just the same complete BS that NBA fans talk about.
How even the worst NBA team woudl go undefeated in the Euroleague, how the best Euroleague teams would be lucky to win 5 games in an NBA season or would even go 0-82, how the Euroleague champion could probably not even beat the NCAA champion, etc.
The talk abotu the ACB here is every bit as ridiculous and delusional as the way NBA fans talk about their insanely overrated league.
Everyone can see the results for themselves. The ACB teams are nothing special at all. The ACB has one elite team that is itself overrated (Barca), a couple of good teams (Real and Vitoria), an average team (Malaga), a below average team (Valencia) and then a good Eurocup level team (Bilbao) and then the rest of the league is made up of teams that are pretty much average Eurocup level clubs or worse.
The results are obvious. The ACB teams in Euroleague are not even 1/10 as good as people claim they are. The ACB has become just like the NBA, incredibly overrated and over hyped and it has to stop, especially in Europe.
Is it the best league? Yes, probably. But it's not remotely close to as much better as any other league as everyone in this forum says. And honestly, if you claim otherwise it just proves that you don't actually even watch the Euroleague.
Debate and discuss.
Partly agree, but it's probably the only league along with the Adriatic that more than 2 teams can win it
Juventut has got more than 8500. With the high ring for importnat games i think that is 12.000. Bacelona hasn't got 8000 seats. 7650 more or less.
Stability for spain could be 7. Akasvayu girona disappeared. And Estudiantes, Manresa, Granda, DKV, Valladolid are in deep troubles
Public interest: A final between Madrid-Barcelona in the 5th game could have 2-2'5 millions of spectators ina country of 45 millions. The same in football could have 40 millions. I think that less than 10% of ppl in Spain likes basketball
BARÇA O MUERTE
Thats a very old thread and many things have changed since then. The capacities are from official sources i found (either acb.com or wikipedia or the clubs websites) if they are different, I apologize. Would you say that people dont care about bball? compare public interest for bball to other countries. see the attendancies. You surely know better, if this thread is to get started again then many things have to be re-evaluated. Things have changed for greece for sure and the same applies to russia and turkey
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Maybe at other countries have got worse attendance but in Spain TV attendance is so poor for basketball. At Spain ppl prefer to see Football, Motrbikes, Formula 1, Tennis, Ciclism (this could be near basketball attendance). Tehre aren't announcements or notices about basketball in tv. At bars(taberns) u can't see basketball games. The last season the tv attendance of Madrid & barcelona in regular season was near only 400.000 people
BARÇA O MUERTE
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