By Lefteris Moutis
His life story is very interesting and multifaceted. He became known all over the world as a famous tennis player, but he didn’t stop there. Immediately after his retirement, he founded a company which specialized in organizing sports events, he was mixed with sports TV rights, he was in charge of the largest European channel, Canal + and now he is chairman of Asvel Villeurbanne’s board.
Also last summer he persuaded two of the most important French NBAers to wear the jersey of Lyon’s team as long as the lockout in NBA lasted. The first one that accepted the invitation was the… owner of Asvel Villerbanne, a guy named Tony Parker who had in France a monthly salary of 1,500 euros. Then Ronny Turiaf followed him.
So Gilles Moretton knows basketball’s administration from every possible position and eurohops.net considered him one of the most appropriate people to talk about the new Euroleague, television rights and teams revenues.
He didn’t have to think it twice and said: “The decision of increasing the number of the games is a very good idea for the competition. Euroleague will be more attractive for the media and the clubs will earn more money. Fans will have to go more times to the courts and clubs will have higher profits by ticketing and sponsoring”.
But would it be normal that Euroleague’s regular season will have fewer games than the second fase, the Top 16? “Media generally and TV channels especially are always looking for more games. The story of next year’s Euroleague will be longer and more interesting for everyone” says Moretton, who explains immediately the new main problem of European basketball: “The crucial decision must be taken by the national leagues. The top clubs of Europe prefer to play in Euroleague against the best and the leagues have to reduce the number of the games”.
His status as Asvel Villeurbanne’s chairman doesn’t give him a higher desire for increased television rights profits? Gilles Moretton knows that because of the distribution system of TV rights in Europe, the profit margins are small. “The income from TV rights depends from each country and it is a complicated issue. Some countries don’t provide any profit and that’s a problem. We have to expect better coverage in all European countries”.
The big losers from this development are the teams that see the main source of their income remaining, at the best case, steady. At the same time, the financial bonuses for the teams are petty. Panathinaikos for example last year won the Euroleague and got only 250,000 euros as a bonus from the league for this success.
Moretton doesn’t share this point of view and raises his shield to protect Euroleague saying that “Villeurbanne didn’t participate this year to Euroleague, so I don’t know in details what’s going on. But my global opinion is that Euroleague does a very good job. It’s not easy. I think that these changes in Euroleague competition system and dates will improve the product. Friday for example is a day without so much sport activity. Euroleague is improving every year and also, Eurocup is very attractive competition, even though we are hoping for an increase in the profits from TV rights”.
If Gilles Moretton says that after so many years in sports management, he must be right.