By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
On the 6th of May in Istanbul during the big meeting of Euroleague, the major European clubs and the domestic leagues, important announcements are expected. At this point it seems almost certain that next season Euroleague will remain the same. However nothing yet can be said for the 2016-17 season.
On the summer of 2017 we expect also major changes in the NBA, the collective bargaining agreement and the salary cap. Can those two very different things be connencted? Directly no, but inderectly the answer is yes… After the new television rights deal it’s certain that the NBPA, the union of the NBA players, will exercise their right to opt out from the current CBA and even under the current agreement the salary cap is expected to be more than 100 million US dollars.
What this has to do with Euroleague?
We will see many more European players going to the NBA, because the financial gap in contracts between the two leagues will be hard to be covered even by the most rich clubs of Europe.
FIBA prepares its counter attack in order to get back the control of the top basketball league in the world after the NBA and at this point two things have happened. The first meeting between national federation in Geneva and some informal meetings between FIBA officials and representatives of big European clubs.
FIBA promises that if the clubs decide to leave the current Euroleague business structure, the financial data will be much more lucratives and they are presenting as examples the revenues from the last two national teams competitions, Eurobasket 2013 and FIBA World Cup 2014. The verbal proposals are so far the following:
- In total the clubs participating in the “new” Euroleague will share the sum of 150 m. euros, a number which is five times bigger than the revenues from the current Euroleague.
- The Euroleague games will be held again on Wednesday and Thursday and not on Friday. Despite the fact that Friday’s game have proved to be a lucrative innovation, many domestic leagues don’t want to arrange their schedule according to Friday’s games, like it happens in Spain with Liga Endesa.
- FIBA also wants to include more countries in the “new” Euroleague, probably by “locking” the number of clubs each country can have in the league and not taking into account the achievements of each club, no matter its country of origin, like it happened so far with Euroleague. However, also a change in the way berths are given in the current Euroleague is expected.
It’s obvious that the “war” is far from over and only time will tell who will prevail in the end. The next two seasons are going to be more than interesting for the future of European basketball and the bottom line will be financial. However gives more money, specially when the salary cap of the NBA will go over the roof, will prevail.
The clubs are waiting to see the money and their choice will be simple. That been said, the number of 150 m. euros which FIBA says that can provide in the first season of its league, seem to be out of any current market logic. Only if a company, or even a country for its own reasons, which can be even political, wants to invest this number, without expecting any financial gains, one may assume that the 150 millions can be found.