By Aris Barkas
Euroleague is only an eleven years old “child” and its future is not yet clear. The business side of the league’s creation was the effort to maximize the revenues of the teams, something that is still a work in progress.
Bold steps have been taken in this path and the change of the game days in the following season along with the expanded schedule of the Top 16 seems to be heading to the right direction. Euroleague is already the dominant league in Europe and has a say even to the structure of national team competitions.
This was discussed among other things in Barcelona on Monday, where the members of the Euroleague Commercial Assets Board met. There was also a hilarious moment when the president of the Greek League (ESAKE) Vasilis Oikonomidis argued that his league is not a two horses race between Panathinaikos and Olympiacos. But the most interesting point of the evening was the idea that a financial fairplay should be reinforced in the league.
The official press release about the meeting writes: “With the assistance of Jan Pommer, Managing Director of the Beko Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) of Germany, Euroleague Basketball has been discussing a project of how to increase the financial well-being of the competition and its participating clubs. Using BBL and UEFA methods as possible examples, the proposal includes financial and accounting models that ensure good financial practices, reinforce rational decision-making processes and optimize the clubs’ financial stability. During the presentation, board members discussed the need to harmonize the system and to pursue a long-term approach to guarantee the financial capability of clubs. Clubs discussed a possible timeline to review the proposal and future implementations”.
So the teams at some point will have to follow the “break-even rule” and spend only the money that they earn. This is something that UEFA is still trying to impose, amid concern at the heavy spending of a number of professional clubs across Europe. The idea is that the regulation will lead to a “level playing field” and wealthy owners will stop making financial gifts to their teams.
The general concept is not bad, but the break-even rule in the near future means… poverty for European basketball. It’s not a secret that all the top teams of the continent spend tons of money without hoping to get it back. It is bad business,without a doubt, but it is also the only way for the league to grow and to prevent top European talent from going to the NBA. In fact if there was a financial fair play, a player like Josh Childress would never had come to Olympiacos, a move that turned many heads in the States and was a great publicity for the Euroleague.
Of course is the job of the league to “increase the financial well-being of the competition and its participating clubs”, but the goal should also be the increase of the revenues, that now are just a fraction compared to the revenues of UEFA and the participating clubs in the European football competitions.