By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
To start with, Euroleague Basketball executives presented the attendees with some indicators about the positive results about the 2016-17 season, including growth of in-arena attendance and audience, both on television and digital.
Board members were also presented with the access criteria that was shared in the Domestic Leagues Meeting last December that remained unaltered, and reviewed the proposed list of 24 teams in the 2017-18 7DAYS EuroCup, the second-tier continental club competition. The list features clubs from 9 Domestic Leagues and 12 countries. Teams will be playing in four regular season groups of six teams, with 16 teams advancing to the Top 16 phase, featuring four groups of four teams. Eight teams will qualify for best-of-three quarterfinals, which will be followed by best-of-three semifinals and best-of-three finals.
The list of clubs are Cedevita Zagreb, Partizan NIS Belgrade, Buducnost VOLI Podgorica, Paris Levallois, ASVEL Lyon Villeurbanne, Limoges CSP, ratiopharm Ulm, FC Bayern Munich, ALBA Berlin, Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem, Dolomiti Energia Trento, Grissin Bon Reggio Emilia, Fiat Turin, Lietkabelis Panevezys, Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius, Zenit St Petersburg, Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar, Unics Kazan, Herbalife Gran Canaria Las Palmas, MoraBanc Andorra, RETAbet Bilbao Basket, Darussafaka Istanbul, Galatasaray Odeabank Istanbul and Tofas Bursa.
Clubs and Leagues were also presented with the financial and economic distribution framework. As announced earlier this month, the 2017-18 EuroCup season will mark the start of a new framework with regards to the collective management of competition media rights after the agreement announced with WME | IMG, by which a similar model to that of the EuroLeague will be implemented. This will result in significant increases in the guaranteed sports pool economic distribution as well as unprecedented revenues distributed through the market pool. The 7DAYS EuroCup will be the European basketball club competition with the second highest average economic distribution per club, behind only the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
The WME | IMG – Euroleague Basketball agreement will secure significant investment in production and marketing to grow the EuroCup’s quality and footprint, and will also make all competition games available at the existing OTT Euroleague.tv platform.
As the previous season, Euroleague Basketball will continue to cover all team and player registration, officiating and other administrative expenses.
Next in the agenda, attendees reviewed the proposed calendar for the 2017-18 competition, which will run from October 11 until April 16, when the last game of the best-of-three finals will be played, if necessary.
The members of the EuroCup Board also reviewed and discussed the most notable modifications to the competition bylaws, covering a range of proposals including gameday operations, arena regulations, marketing and communications, audiovisual, instant replay reviewable matters and disciplinary, amongst others.