The International Basketball Federation (Fiba) officially launched its new Basketball Champions League at an event in Paris on Monday. The controversial breakaway competition, set to begin later this year, will feature many of Europe’s best basketball teams but with Fiba and Euroleague Basketball embroiled in a public struggle for control over the continental game, the Basketball Champions League is facing an uncertain future before it has even begun.
How will it work?
The Basketball Champions League will feature 56 teams from 30 countries, with 32 teams playing in the regular season, 24 of which will be given a direct spot based on sporting criteria. The inaugural season will commence with a qualifying round on 27th September and culminate with a Final Four event at a yet-to-be-determined venue between 28th and 30th April 2017.
A total of 300 games will be played over the course of the eight-month season, with fixtures played on Wednesdays and Thursdays so as not to clash with national league schedules. The 32 regular season teams will be split into four groups, and each team will play all others in their group home and away between October and February. The four best teams in each group will progress to the 16-team play-off stage, while the teams ranked fifth and sixth in each group will join the play-offs of the second-tier Fiba Europe Cup.
After the round of 16 stage, which will feature home and away legs in each tie, winning teams will progress to the two-leg quarter-finals, with the four subsequent winners qualifying for the showpiece Final Four.
The countries that will have direct qualification in the regular season are Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and Turkey. No participating teams have yet been announced since all will have to qualify via their domestic leagues, but the prize money for the competition will total €4.42 million, with payments increasing depending on sporting performance. All regular season participants will receive €100,000 as well as funds towards TV production costs of home games, while the champions will take home €500,000.
The Champions League will be run by Fiba, in partnership with ten European domestic leagues and the Union of European Basketball Leagues (ULEB). An independent and separate legal entity, based in Switzerland, will be tasked with operating and commercialising the competition, with a board of directors overseeing day-to-day business from the outset.
The newly elected board will be chaired by Markus Studer, Fiba’s chief operating officer who, as deputy secretary general at Uefa, was part of the founding committee that established soccer’s Uefa Champions League in the early 90s. The board also consists of the heads of the national leagues in France, Germany, Greece, Poland and Turkey, as well as Cyriel Coomans, the first vice president of Fiba Europe, and Kamil Novak, the global governing body’s executive director for Europe.
“The fundamental principle of the Basketball Champions League is that it is a competition based on a sporting criterion,” Studer said in a statement. “This will not only protect the national leagues but also dramatically increase their value while also helping our sport grow.”
How did it come about?
The creation of the Basketball Champions League can essentially be traced all the way back to 2000, when Europe’s top clubs broke away from Fiba’s control to form a new competition run by Euroleague Basketball, the Spanish club-owned entity that continues to operate the elite continental game to this day.
Since the split, Euroleague Basketball has been responsible for organising the top two tiers of European club basketball – the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and the Eurocup – while Fiba, through its Fiba Europe division, has continued to run its own third-tier competition, the EuroChallenge, which was replaced last year by the Fiba Europe Cup.
The model of clubs running their elite continental competitions has, generally speaking, proved successful since the turn of the century, at least according to figures released by the Euroleague last May, but Fiba, no doubt feeling undermined by the breakaway, has long sought to take back what it lost 16 years ago.
To that end, Fiba initially went public with its plans for the Basketball Champions League last year, sparking a war of words that has been raging on between the federation and Euroleague Basketball ever since. Over the course of weeks of behind-closed-doors meetings held at Fiba’s headquarters on the outskirts of Geneva, official communications and interviews in the media have emerged from both corners as each side bids to assert its position or, in the Euroleague’s case, defend its interests.
At one stage, Fiba was openly courting the Euroleague’s biggest clubs with the promise of greater revenues if they defected, its original 16-team proposal having called for half of the spots in the Basketball Champions League to be reserved for the sides that currently hold Euroleague A licenses. Yet that advance was dramatically rebuffed when, last November, the Euroleague announced ‘a revolutionary joint venture’ with IMG that would see the creation of two even more lucrative competitions later this year.
The Euroleague-IMG plan will, in a nutshell, see the top-level Euroleague revamped to feature a reduced line-up of 16 teams – down from 24 in the current iteration – with 11 sides that currently hold Euroleague A licenses given permanent berths and participating clubs sharing more than €35 million a year.
Unperturbed, Fiba pressed ahead with its plans for the Champions League. A host of working groups involving national associations, leagues and clubs from across the continent have attempted to address key issues regarding governance, finances and competition matters. In recent weeks, more and more individuals and entities have pledged their support for the new competition, many of them doing so after being left disenfranchised by the new Euroleague, which, they point out, significantly reduces access to elite continental competitions and effectively shuts out those teams further down the food chain.
Indeed, one of the main concerns regarding the new-look Euroleague centres on its ‘closed’ format, which is more akin to North America’s franchised-based National Basketball Association (NBA) than anything currently seen in Europe, where the concepts of promotion and relegation are key to sporting culture.
Jean-Pierre Siutat, the president of the French Basketball Federation (FFBB) and a member of Fiba's central board, recently summed up the overriding sentiment within Europe when he told L’Equipe: “I'm defending a project which supports the right sporting values and aims at growing French basketball. We’re not the bad guys. If Euroleague wish to live on their own, away from the rest and have a closed league, there's no problem. But we won't let them attempt a take-over bid of all European clubs.”
The creation of the Champions League is, then, a clear attempt by Fiba and its member associations to wrest back control of the European game, but there is an additional element at play. In addition to wanting a cut of club-related revenues, the federation is also hoping to ensure any continental competition aligns with its new calendar for national team competitions, which comes into effect next year despite strong opposition from – you guessed it – the Euroleague.
As the political posturing has drawn on, the dispute has grown increasingly bitter and worryingly public. Fiba’s tactics have been strongly criticised by the Euroleague and last month the latter filed an official complaint to the European Commission in Brussels, citing what it called ‘unacceptable and illegal threats and pressures that Fiba and its member federations are making against clubs, players and referees to force them to abandon the Euroleague and the Eurocup and only participate in Fiba competitions.’
‘The complaint's objective is to guarantee that clubs, players and referees can freely make the choice to participate in the competitions that they consider appropriate without being subject to threats or pressures,’ the Euroleague said.
‘Fiba is violating European Union law because, in a blatant conflict of interest, Fiba has rules on its books that provide for sanctions against those who are involved in competitions not approved by Fiba.’
What does it mean for European basketball?
There is no denying that the ongoing spat between Fiba and the Euroleague has further fractured an already tortured relationship, creating deep and seemingly irreconcilable divisions within the continental game. Both sides are refusing to back down as they strive to ensure their competition is viewed as Europe’s preeminent league, and right now there is no telling how, if at all, the dispute will be resolved.
What is certain, however, is that the creation of a second continental competition would appear a major step back for basketball in Europe. Some would argue that the introduction of a dual system would be disastrous, creating a situation reminiscent of 16 years ago when Fiba’s Suproleague survived just one season competing alongside the Euroleague that would subsequently replace it. Certainly, the European market at that time could not sustain two rival basketball competitions. Many doubt whether it can today.
Yet times have changed. In Fiba’s defence and to the Euroleague’s credit, club basketball in Europe has undoubtedly matured since 2000. Though a handful of sides have dominated the Euroleague in recent seasons, clubs across the board are on a surer financial footing than they ever have been and the continued commercial growth and profile of Euroleague Basketball is testament to both their collective efforts and the sustained appeal of the sport across the continent.
Still, significant questions remain. Could a dual system – and the uncertainty it has created – ultimately devalue European club basketball as a commercial proposition? Will there be sanctions or fines for clubs who refuse to pledge their allegiance to Fiba? And how can Fiba possibly expect teams to sign up to its competition when the Euroleague is offering far greater revenues?
It is also telling that many clubs from Spain, whose domestic league is widely considered the strongest in Europe, have refused to sign up to the Champions League, while the 11 teams that have already pledged their allegiance to the Euroleague will also be missing. Without the participation of the continental powerhouses like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona Lassa, Olympiacos Piraeus and CSKA Moscow, can Fiba’s Champions League justifiably claim to be the leading club competition in Europe?
Meanwhile the involvement of industry powerbroker IMG has added another intriguing plot line to the whole affair. IMG has jumped into bed with the Euroleague yet it is also a Fiba partner, having signed a ‘long-term’ deal to distribute the global media rights to the federation’s 3×3 tournaments in 2014. What role the agency will ultimately play in the saga remains to be seen.
* The original version of this article said participating clubs in the new Euroleague will each be paid more than €35 million a year. They will in fact share more than €35 million a year.
The International Basketball Federation (Fiba) officially launched its new Basketball Champions League at an event in Paris on Monday. The controversial breakaway competition, set to begin later this year, will feature many of Europe’s best basketball teams but with Fiba and Euroleague Basketball embroiled in a public struggle for control over the continental game, the Basketball Champions League is facing an uncertain future before it has even begun.
How will it work?
The Basketball Champions League will feature 56 teams from 30 countries, with 32 teams playing in the regular season, 24 of which will be given a direct spot based on sporting criteria. The inaugural season will commence with a qualifying round on 27th September and culminate with a Final Four event at a yet-to-be-determined venue between 28th and 30th April 2017.
A total of 300 games will be played over the course of the eight-month season, with fixtures played on Wednesdays and Thursdays so as not to clash with national league schedules. The 32 regular season teams will be split into four groups, and each team will play all others in their group home and away between October and February. The four best teams in each group will progress to the 16-team play-off stage, while the teams ranked fifth and sixth in each group will join the play-offs of the second-tier Fiba Europe Cup.
After the round of 16 stage, which will feature home and away legs in each tie, winning teams will progress to the two-leg quarter-finals, with the four subsequent winners qualifying for the showpiece Final Four.
The countries that will have direct qualification in the regular season are Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and Turkey. No participating teams have yet been announced since all will have to qualify via their domestic leagues, but the prize money for the competition will total €4.42 million, with payments increasing depending on sporting performance. All regular season participants will receive €100,000 as well as funds towards TV production costs of home games, while the champions will take home €500,000.
The Champions League will be run by Fiba, in partnership with ten European domestic leagues and the Union of European Basketball Leagues (ULEB). An independent and separate legal entity, based in Switzerland, will be tasked with operating and commercialising the competition, with a board of directors overseeing day-to-day business from the outset.
The newly elected board will be chaired by Markus Studer, Fiba’s chief operating officer who, as deputy secretary general at Uefa, was part of the founding committee that established soccer’s Uefa Champions League in the early 90s. The board also consists of the heads of the national leagues in France, Germany, Greece, Poland and Turkey, as well as Cyriel Coomans, the first vice president of Fiba Europe, and Kamil Novak, the global governing body’s executive director for Europe.
“The fundamental principle of the Basketball Champions League is that it is a competition based on a sporting criterion,” Studer said in a statement. “This will not only protect the national leagues but also dramatically increase their value while also helping our sport grow.”
How did it come about?
The creation of the Basketball Champions League can essentially be traced all the way back to 2000, when Europe’s top clubs broke away from Fiba’s control to form a new competition run by Euroleague Basketball, the Spanish club-owned entity that continues to operate the elite continental game to this day.
Since the split, Euroleague Basketball has been responsible for organising the top two tiers of European club basketball – the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and the Eurocup – while Fiba, through its Fiba Europe division, has continued to run its own third-tier competition, the EuroChallenge, which was replaced last year by the Fiba Europe Cup.
The model of clubs running their elite continental competitions has, generally speaking, proved successful since the turn of the century, as figures released by the Euroleague last May showed, but Fiba, no doubt feeling undermined by the breakaway, has long sought to take back what it lost 16 years ago.
To that end, Fiba initially went public with its plans for the Basketball Champions League last year, sparking a war of words that has been raging on between the federation and Euroleague Basketball ever since. Over the course of weeks of behind-closed-doors meetings held at Fiba’s headquarters on the outskirts of Geneva, official communications and interviews in the media have emerged from both corners as each side bids to assert its position or, in the Euroleague’s case, defend its interests.
At one stage, Fiba was openly courting the Euroleague’s biggest clubs with the promise of greater revenues if they defected, its original 16-team proposal having called for half of the spots in the Basketball Champions League to be reserved for the sides that currently hold Euroleague A licenses. Yet that advance was dramatically rebuffed when, last November, the Euroleague announced ‘a revolutionary joint venture’ with IMG that would see the creation of two even more lucrative competitions later this year.
The Euroleague-IMG plan will, in a nutshell, see the top-level Euroleague revamped to feature a reduced line-up of 16 teams – down from 24 in the current iteration – with 11 sides that currently hold Euroleague A licenses given permanent berths and participating clubs sharing more than €35 million a year.
Unperturbed, Fiba pressed ahead with its plans for the Champions League. A host of working groups involving national associations, leagues and clubs from across the continent have attempted to address key issues regarding governance, finances and competition matters. In recent weeks, more and more individuals and entities have pledged their support for the new competition, many of them doing so after being left disenfranchised by the new Euroleague, which, they point out, significantly reduces access to elite continental competitions and effectively shuts out those teams further down the food chain.
Indeed, one of the main concerns regarding the new-look Euroleague centres on its ‘closed’ format, which is more akin to North America’s franchised-based National Basketball Association (NBA) than anything currently seen in Europe, where the concepts of promotion and relegation are key to sporting culture.
Jean-Pierre Siutat, the president of the French Basketball Federation (FFBB) and a member of Fiba's central board, recently summed up the overriding sentiment within Europe when he told L’Equipe: “I'm defending a project which supports the right sporting values and aims at growing French basketball. We’re not the bad guys. If Euroleague wish to live on their own, away from the rest and have a closed league, there's no problem. But we won't let them attempt a take-over bid of all European clubs.”
The creation of the Champions League is, then, a clear attempt by Fiba and its member associations to wrest back control of the European game, but there is an additional element at play. In addition to wanting a cut of club-related revenues, the federation is also hoping to ensure any continental competition aligns with its new calendar for national team competitions, which comes into effect next year despite strong opposition from – you guessed it – the Euroleague.
As the political posturing has drawn on, the dispute has grown increasingly bitter and worryingly public. Fiba’s tactics have been strongly criticised by the Euroleague and last month the latter filed an official complaint to the European Commission in Brussels, citing what it called ‘unacceptable and illegal threats and pressures that Fiba and its member federations are making against clubs, players and referees to force them to abandon the Euroleague and the Eurocup and only participate in Fiba competitions.’
‘The complaint's objective is to guarantee that clubs, players and referees can freely make the choice to participate in the competitions that they consider appropriate without being subject to threats or pressures,’ the Euroleague said.
‘Fiba is violating European Union law because, in a blatant conflict of interest, Fiba has rules on its books that provide for sanctions against those who are involved in competitions not approved by Fiba.’
What does it mean for European basketball?
There is no denying that the ongoing spat between Fiba and the Euroleague has further fractured an already tortured relationship, creating deep and seemingly irreconcilable divisions within the continental game. Both sides are refusing to back down as they strive to ensure their competition is viewed as Europe’s preeminent league, and right now there is no telling how, if at all, the dispute will be resolved.
What is certain, however, is that the creation of a second continental competition would appear a major step back for basketball in Europe. Some would argue that the introduction of a dual system would be disastrous, creating a situation reminiscent of 16 years ago when Fiba’s Suproleague survived just one season competing alongside the Euroleague that would subsequently replace it. Certainly, the European market at that time could not sustain two rival basketball competitions. Many doubt whether it can today.
Yet times have changed. In Fiba’s defence and to the Euroleague’s credit, club basketball in Europe has undoubtedly matured since 2000. Though a handful of sides have dominated the Euroleague in recent seasons, clubs across the board are on a surer financial footing than they ever have been and the continued commercial growth and profile of Euroleague Basketball is testament to both their collective efforts and the sustained appeal of the sport across the continent.
Still, significant questions remain. Could a dual system ultimately devalue European club basketball as a commercial proposition? Will there be sanctions or fines for clubs who refuse to pledge their allegiance to Fiba? And how can Fiba possibly expect teams to sign up to its competition when the Euroleague is offering far greater revenues?
It is also telling that clubs from Spain, whose domestic league is widely considered the strongest in Europe, have refused to sign up to the Champions League, while the 11 clubs that have already pledged their allegiance to the Euroleague will also be missing. Without the participation of the continental powerhouses like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona Lassa, Olympiacos Piraeus and CSKA Moscow, can Fiba’s Champions League justifiably claim to be the leading club competition in Europe?
Meanwhile the involvement of industry powerbroker IMG has added another intriguing plot line to the whole affair. IMG has jumped into bed with the Euroleague yet it is also a Fiba partner, having signed a ‘long-term’ deal to distribute the global media rights to the federation’s 3×3 tournaments in 2014. What role the agency will ultimately play in the saga remains to be seen.
* The original version of this article said participating clubs in the new Euroleague will each be paid more than €35 million a year. They will in fact share more than €35 million a year.
