FIBA vs ULEB

[Joško Poljak Fan]

that would be the end of Euroleague i mean why should i follow Euroleague at all if there is only one club from ABA? and im alredy sick of watching the same teams again and again playing in top8 and f4

Wholefully agreed. This area has given way too much to european basketball to be ignored like this, no matter the shortage with finances. There is a line somewhere and 1 club in euroleague from 6 different countries is across that.

As ussual I also have to mention that giving euroleague licences by the right of the Divine hand of God is also medieval and most of all unfair to numerous other countries, be it Belgium, Portugal, Czech rep., Hungary, Latvia etc. I love the following example: if it wasn't for Olimpija winning the equivalent to eurocup in 94 and got to F4 in 97' I probably wouldn't be here writing this as I would be probably more interested in Ice-Hockey, if Aris hasn't done well in the late 80ies, half the Greeks would be missing at this forum, or imagine Sale's threepointer in 92 never happening... now imagine all the players just from these two countries we can watch nowadays that wouldn't neccesarily even pick up basketball... and noone has the right to take that chance away from any nation listed above (or a country missing from that list as far as I care).

While I am generaly sceptical about the Bertomeu's vision for euroleague and normaly quite vocal about it, I mostdefinately don't intend to watch a single game of 16 member closed version of euroleague if that's the case. And am quite sure I'm far from alone in that regard.

Petrucci (the head of Italian federation) says nothing in particular just that there were talks and that he'll present this project with the clubs interested in it, the confusing part is when he is mentioning cooperation with the NBA. I have doubts that would mean NBA would actually allow a time-window for winter NT qualifications phase which Fiba advertised as of recently, but than again I can't connect any other dots with NBA and what's currently been going on and I don't think he has been talking about the recent NBA+Fiba camp in Cuba.

if that 16 club euroleague has been a "strike 1".... here comes the "strike 2" reported by eurohoops (honestly good job by guys at eurohoops, I'm not used to as good and up to date reporting as far as basketball goes, keep up the good work!)

According to Eurohoops sources the NBA is going to be a factor in the future of European competitions, not only because of the possibility of expansion, but also because of the possible support to a new FIBA Euro-league. The relationship between the top league of the world and FIBA is better than ever and the American side has many open issues that are FIBA-related, like the possibility of making the Olympics an U22 tournament and the new national team calendar. On the other hand, the NBA has the know how and the resources to help a new league thrive in Europe.

and now I'm waiting for the "strike 3 and out..."

Considering my source that confirmed Petrucci was somehow serious about something going on with the NBA, the internal battle within uleb/euroleague should follow next within a while with Portela (?) having a role in it.

If all this is only half true, Bertomeu won't be sure what exactly hit him. On the other hand, it just might be the same smokescreen coming from various different directions. We shall see...

[ThePeraCar]

European basketball has been longing for some better system i think UEFA system is pretty good even tho i like much more NBA system but whatever everything is better than this

[Jon_Koncak]

My blood boils just reading about this closed 16 teams league plan.No words to describe how much i hate Bertomeu and his gang.Federations and smaller clubs have to do sth,that would be the end of european basketball.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Relatively silent day.
There are quite some articles overeacting and some others using lots of imagination, all the way to one particular article completely failing even with copy paste function that just made my day

Even if numbers differ, it seems that there is a consensus in various unconnected media that Fiba is able to spend more than euroleague.
One Spanish site (can't remember which) claimed Fiba is expecting to outspent euroleague by 3 to 4 times as far as clubs revenues go... imo probably exaggerating.

basketnet.gr reports that while euroleague spent 16 millions on their teams this season, they intend to increase that to 20 the next season, while Fiba is intending to divide 30 millions among the clubs.
After some consideration 16 millions spent this season might just be somewhere near reality.


@JonKoncak, same here. If I were to guess on the subject I think that sounds just like some desperation move. In case it's true of course. Sounds too good to be true to me, since 16 member euroleague sounds kind of a last nail in the coffin for Bertomeu in my opinion.

@Exitche; NBA has it's pluses, however I think europe is too culturaly diverse to be able to constitute a 30 members league and expect to reach whole of europe with it. I can't imagine seeing Pao, Oly as well as AEK fans cheering for one club only and Athens sure as hell can't hypotheticaly receive 3 clubs in such closed league. that's the point where football already set some rules for profesional sport in europe that are borderline impossible to change with it's popularity.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Interesting interview by Mirko Novosel, member of the bball hall of fame by vecernji.hr:

-he says Maccabi, Pao, CSKA asked Bora Stanković just to leave them managing their own TV rights, but Stanković didn't do that due to personal reasons and his retirement coming up. Novosel believes if Bora did that, than Virtus and Olympiakos would follow and european club championship would remain under Fiba and would by his opinion never divide
-he claims Demirel should've become in charge right after Stanković (seems to be holding him in high regard), biggest Fiba's weakness were some of it's staff. Demirel and Bauman are by his words completely capable to win this battle.
-claims telefonica tried to push for a closed elite league in football, UEFA was strong enough to kill that idea before it even started and telefonica later directed themselves towards basketball with it (I didn't know that)
-Bertomeu indeed got into a fight with Portela (chief of Uleb; I would've say I told ya, but that was probably a public secret everyone interested in the subject already knew), by Novosel's word this is one of the reasons Uleb became vulnerable enough for Fiba to attack
-he says the outcome is extremely predictable and clubs will have to bail one by on as federations will force them to
-completely in favour of the champions league structure, judging by his words I'm concluding that's supposed to be the case with Fiba as well
-on the side, Novosel doesn't know about the NBA's stance in this case. Said Stern did mention to him he is interested in an european conference (even if that's even currently not really plausible thing to make)


About the predictability Novosel mentioned, so far, if half of this is true It's quite easy to agree.
1. Fiba will present their league and gain vast support from federations as well as organizations running the leagues, with few exceptions
(Slovenia, Serbia f.e. are already sold on the idea, Latvia, Belgium, Czech, Hungary, Portugal + all those marked "unworthy" by Bertomeu and their interests are easily predictable, Turks probably won't bail on Demirel, Pommern with BBL sounds like a guy that would support this, the big 4 won't have the saying in collective Endesa and so on...)
2. The big clubs will be voted over in those institutions
3. some will try to stick with euroleague due to licences and "security" but some of those will probably switch sides for a more lucrative offer, no matter losing the licences as they're dominant enough in their national championships anyway
4. National federations and national leagues will press on the remaining few clubs, that won't have much of an option left
5. Fiba takes over and hopefully all of this isn't just some bullshit and they actualy will transform the euroleague into a champions league type competition as it should be

[ThePeraCar]

http://www.b92.net/sport/kosarka/vesti.php?yyyy=2015&mm=04&dd=13&nav_id=980229

Clubs will own aba from now on
Also ABA 2nd division question will be opened soon

[Joško Poljak Fan]

http://www.b92.net/sport/kosarka/ves...&nav_id=980229
Clubs will own aba from now on
Also ABA 2nd division question will be opened soon

Well, some of the media are actualy portraying this as a huge win by Fiba, as if they had anything to do with that, clearly not understanding that Fiba wants federation and not clubs in charge and I don't think that's really negotionable for them. If they've got strong cards (and FIba does seem to believe they do), I don't think they'll settle. I don't believe that 2nd ABA talks either. I'd support that, however we all know financial burdeon is just as high as with ABA1, not being able to actualy finance ABA1 makes me wonder how in the world can they be serious about ABA2, without that being only sweet talk only.

Ex-Yu media are just ridiculous "od Vardara pa do Triglava" (for no-Ex-Yu-speakers: from Vardar to Triglav; citation from a song called Jugoslavija) and I can already see the accusations and bad will when later this whole story will be turned 180 degrees once again and the absurd theories that will follow one another...


encestando.es with a good article again
-confirms the 16 team model they've reported (as first) few days ago, saving money and enableing more for those 16 clubs remaining
-organising both national and club tournaments enables easier scheduling for Fiba and brings TV rights and marketing synergies as I've stated in one of the upper posts
-Fiba is reportedly planning on giving out money to the various clubs for members of national team playing in Fiba competitions, covering an insurance, as they claim is the case with UEFA ; imo the right thing to go as NT's must get something back from those TV rights Fiba is getting for eurobasket
-Fiba's plan is supposedly well accepted with most federations in Europe, if I understood correctly they're yet to meet with Spanish ACB
-Union of european leagues (ULEB) is likely to stick with Fiba, trying to defend their members (national leagues) from Bertomeu's licences decreasing the value of their competition as well as scheduling of euroleague games being played at weekends.


Euroleague is answering, from various sources:
-every win in euroleague should earn the club 40k € (1.200.000 € max)
-finalist would earn 400k € (125k € now)
-the winner would get 1 million € (250k € now)
-games played on fridays and tuesdays (? - would be increasingly difficult to play in national championships if true?!)
-next meeting on may the 6th in Istanbul

If true, this seems like an attempt towards NBA like closed league
teams could play their national league on Sundays, but rest assured they would have to consider all of it real hard, as 3 games per week without the upmost luxury as far as traveling goes is tireing as hell. The team with their own private jet wins, as simple as that.

I am ussualy not bad with numbers, can see some of their savings with this model, however when considering either the troubles with transport or missing on the national league, which for most teams (CSKA is an exception to that, but most of others aint') still represents a big part of their ticket incomes, I don't think it's really that easy to claim those rewards could significantly impact the overall income for those clubs.

Also without the additional income, either from sponsors or TV rights, I can't see where euroleague will find those additional 8-9 million € they're promising. Savings through cutting 8 teams of can't possibly ammount to that number. If I had to guess Jordi is bluffing a bit or counting on some increased TV revenues due to his model, which I find a tad optimistic.
I can see where Bertomeu is heading, however this proposal, if true, might as well return as a boomerang as soon as 1, let alone 2, god forbid 3 of his top teams would be forced to play with Fiba (not unlikely), his expected TV revenue won't be the same with some ad-hoc substitutions.

If Fiba would go public with their league plans, I think It would be quite easy to determine which side will prevail.

[A-J]

JPF, here is the source for the Euroleague answer: mundodeportivo.com/baloncesto/euroliga/20150414/102831094108/la-euroliga-contraataca-liga-de-equipos-mas-premios-y-cada-club-gestionara-su-tv.html
It looks right now, as if the Fiba has more federations behind it, but I didn't hear any noise from League federations. Maybe the clubs are waiting also. The article of encestando seems to be going too far, or do you have some more informations about the big clubs?

[Joško Poljak Fan]

Well, first off all we can easily say out of those 11 "big's" it's Real, Barca, Maccabi, Fener, Bayern that matter the most (might've missed some) due to TV rights, as far as the "big 11" goes if all their leagues would succumb to Fiba, they've got relatively little choice. Expulsion from national championship and playing in euroleague on one side and bowing down to Fiba and staying in national leagues and playing Fiba euroleague. That's what I've been told would be the last resort from Fiba if they'll manage to get far enough with unanimous (or close to that) support from leagues and federations, which would basicaly won them all clubs in europe minus 16 euroleague ones... yes, euroleague licences opposition is so strong it might actualy turn out like that.

It will all depend on the financial aspects of Fiba's euroleague, most clubs are wisely quiet and waiting on those just as the league's are. In case Fiba offers more money than euroleague, as majority expects it could, sheer licences and closed league probably won't be worth the troubles for most of the "big 11", while every club Bertomeu loses from that group will hurt him a lot from financial perspective.

I think those numbers from the euroleague are inflated, especialy without those 25% from TV rights, just as Marca says above, Bertomeu would have to explain what exactly changed to the extent such prizes suddenly became possible.


That being said, I don't think encestando got too far there.
While the financial monopoly might be on Barca and Real side, don't underestimate the soft influence some smaller clubs have through personal relations etc. same goes for many other countries.

hipotheticaly if both offers were about even...
in Spain, clubs have been in an open revolt against licences some times beforehand, decreasing the number of licences by 1 Jordi might promise might not satisfied the rest. Needless to say Bilbao, Valencia, Gran Canaria, Zaragoza, Joventut, Gran Canaria aren't too excited about licences that put them in an unfavourable position. I don't know about the legal aspects of ACB decisionmaking, but those clubs might only need some larger orchestrated uprising to join it, as it's in their best interest to keep euroleague as open as possible, unlike what Jordi is doing.
in Italy, words about euroleague's dislike of the "small clubs" didn't just pass by. A lot of people connected with Italian basketball comes from those smaller places as Cantu, Varese, Pesaro and basicaly whole league 90% made out of those smaller clubs got a clear message that Bertometu is only interested in teams from Milano, Roma, Naples or Bologna. You can imagine aren't too satisfied to hear that, or with the fact Italy is about to lose 3 out of their 4 euroleague teams not that long ago and have little benefit from sticking with Bertomeu accordingly. If Fiba says they'd get 2 clubs +1-2 in qualifications for example, I don't think there would be much loyalty left for the euroleague.
You know better than me as far as Germany goes, would Pommer (as well as other clubs, Broose in particular) really be satisfied with the prospect of Alba + Bayern being designated to play in euroleague year after year and BBL losing on importance, attendance and revenue accordingly?
As far as ABA goes and ex-Yu federations, they'll wait untill the last minutes to see what will happen and which ABA (out of the two; most media haven't realised that yet) to stick with. If Fiba wins with other leagues, they're sold without many further questions and maybee even considerations about the new leagues strenght, not to mention that in case more clubs get the oppurtunity to play in euroleague, they might be sold even if Fiba offered less €. Neither Cedevita, Partizan or Zvezda sees their future anywhere else but in the top euro competition - without that for few years in a row, their survival on this level would be endangered. Bertomeu intends to decrease the number of euroleague teams to 16, while Fiba can offer places in qualifications to other countries and get them on their side easily, if they're smart

Don't know anything about Greece, Turkey, Russia, Lithuania, Israel, I believe France might decide for Fiba considering I don't buy that PSG/Monaco stuff and they don't need licences and stuff, but Fiba has the ultimate arguement on their side, copying the champions league and abolishing licences, which had strong opposition ever since euroleague started with those.

It's simply not in the interest of the clubs that are left out of euroleague to support a licenced, closed top european league, that's why some people seem all that certain with the outcome of all this.

[ThePeraCar]

Well even if FIBA did nothing and that 16 teams EL happened i think Eurocup would prevail and most of people would rather follow EC than EL cuz there would be much more quality teams than it is now =)

[Efesdxb]

JPF, about Turkey what I would guess, as Turgay Demirel is FIBA Europe's boss Turkey will go in favour of FIBA with their three big sponsors; Turkish Airlines, Efes and BEKO.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

JPF, about Turkey what I would guess, as Turgay Demirel is FIBA Europe's boss Turkey will go in favour of FIBA with their three big sponsors; Turkish Airlines, Efes and BEKO.

If that happens, Bertomeu is basicaly screwed. If you'll find anything about it in the Turkish media, please do report

Well even if FIBA did nothing and that 16 teams EL happened i think Eurocup would prevail and most of people would rather follow EC than EL cuz there would be much more quality teams than it is now =)

The problem will occur, when fans of euroleague's clubs will continously get tired of playing in euroleague year after year and attendance will decrease without the newcoming clubs improving those numbers, as well as with the fact about a quarter of the clubs will lose realistical chances to progress into top8 somewhere in the 15th round and some more untill the 20th round. I don't think this model will work for euroleague in the mid-term.

eurohoops link

Jordi Bertomeu is meeting today with the heads of the major domestic leagues in Europe, in order to inform them about the upcoming Euroleague changes and the new plan of the competition.

According to Eurohoops sources, the 16 teams format is gaining ground and the teams which will not be part of the competition after the reduction of Euroleague spots from 24, will have to settle for Eurocup that will became a much more competitive league from the get go. Τhis new formar translates to 30 games for each team and up to 37 for those playing in the play offs and the final four, so the calendar of the domestic leagues has to be worked around those extra games. This idea also sees the return of the pyramid structure, at least between Euroleague and Eurocup. The proposal of Euroleague is for one team to relegate to Eurocup every season according to its last three seasons results and the winner of Eurocup taking its place.

The Spanish and the Turkish league are not totally satisfied with this idea and they want two teams to relegate from Euroleague after every season and two from Eurocup, the finalists, taking their places. The Eurocup berths will be decided from the results of the domestic leagues and the only way to play in Euroleague, if you are not already a part of the competition, will be via the Eurocup.

UPDATE: The current state of the 12 A Licences will not change even under a 16 teams format. That means at this point there’s a grey zone for the 2 or 3 teams which will not get their Euroleague berths via the Eurocup. It’s one more question at this point if those spots will be awarded via wildcards, or via an other system, if the 16 teams formar prevails.

[Terrorizer]

Oh my God, it seems that Jordi really wants to fuck it all up. The main advantages of Euroleague are its (relative) openness, connection to local championships' results, that very devotion and a fact that most of the games do matter as opposed to NBA idiotic standards when in 99% of regular seasons games players just don't give a shit about the outcome. The way to make Euroleague better and more interesting is to expand it to 32 teams competition and to eliminate shameful A licenses system (which is especially absurd as most of their holders would easily qualify for EL even if these licenses would be eliminated). Roughly speaking, applying UEFA standards for managing European club competitions would only do immense good for basketball. And right now we see the exact opposite direction which would make Euroleague, the best basketball club competition in the world at the moment, a poor man's replica of NBA.

It's not that I believe in a fact that FIBA will be better in managing European club competitions than ULEB retarded crooks. These bastards agreed with four year cycle for Eurobasket and elimination of the second group stage starting from 2017 onwards which is just a plain shame. But in order to make European basketball prospering instead of declining we need bigger competition (the average level won't decrease as there is always a lot of EC teams which are more competitive than EL outsiders) and more open, UEFA-like system. It's an obvious thing.

P.S. I don't even know if I want Khimki to become a part of this 'elitaristic', Americanized close(minde)d 'Euroleague' if this criminal idea would come to reality. Most probably, no.

[Peace]

I am ussualy not bad with numbers, can see some of their savings with this model, however when considering either the troubles with transport or missing on the national league, which for most teams (CSKA is an exception to that, but most of others aint') still represents a big part of their ticket incomes, I don't think it's really that easy to claim those rewards could significantly impact the overall income for those clubs.

+1 Anadolu Efes...

Anadolu Efes's average attendance(domestic league) is about 1000~1500. This figure is smaller than CSKA.

[A-J]

On yesterday's meeting with Bertomeu, the leagues couldn't find an solution.
There were members of the leagues from Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Israel, Poland and Germany. After this article:
mundodeportivo.com/baloncesto/euroliga/20150416/102848206573/bertomeu-no-logra-la-unanimidad-de-las-ligas.html
three leagues, lead by the spanish one, are definitely behind Bertomeu.