By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Professional leagues should make a profit and this is an area in which European basketball suffers in every front. With the 7Days EuroCup being established as the preparatory stage for entering the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and Basketball Champions League being their rival, the amount of money that a club can gain through the BCL and the EuroCup can’t be compared with the EuroLeague revenues.
And unless something dramatic happens during the summer, like it happened last year both in the EuroCup and the Basketball Champions League, the two competitions give back per average pretty much the same money to the clubs with EuroCup having a slight edge.
EuroCup’s regular season consists of 24 teams and the Basketball Champions League has 32 teams in their regular season. That means that each club shares per average 166.000 euros in the EuroCup and 162,500 euros in the Basketball Champions League.
If we deduct the money going directly to the clubs and not covering officiating or marketing expenses, each EuroCup club gets per average 125.000 euros and each Basketball Champions League club gets 109.375 euros.
However, those numbers are theoretical. Here’s what a team gets according to their results in each competition.
|
Competition |
EuroCup |
Basketball Champions League |
|
Total distribution |
€4M |
€5,2M |
|
Officiating expenses |
€1M |
€1,7 M (officiating plus marketing) |
|
Direct distribution |
€3M |
€3,5M |
|
Regular season |
€20,000 |
€50,000 |
|
Phase of 16 |
€50,000 |
€70,000 |
|
Quarterfinal |
€90,000 |
€100,000 |
|
Semifinals |
€150,000 |
€200,000 (3rd) – €140.000 (4th) |
|
Runner Up |
€275,000 |
€400.000 |
|
Champion |
€450,000 |
€1M |
The EuroCup direct distribution is divided into a two million euros sports pool for competition results and one million euros of market pool revenues, that boost the clubs earnings by more than 40.000 euros per average. This number is added to the revenues presented in the table which are the sports pool bonuses. In the Basketball Champions League, there’s no market pool so far.
In raw numbers, only the Basketball Champions League finalists and also the third best team of the competition get more money than their equivalent EuroCup teams. In all other cases, EuroCup teams are expected to gain slightly more compared to the Basketball Champions League teams.
It, also, has to be noted that hosting the Basketball Champions League Final Four may increase a team’s chances to win the trophy and the one million euros prize due to the home court advantage. On the other hand, the total cost of the Final Four is calculated around one million euros, which is covered both by the Basketball Champions League and the host team. So the bottom line of a club’s revenues from the Basketball Champions League will be significantly hurt if they get to host the event.
Still, the Basketball Champions League after two years of existence has already been established and provides an alternative to EuroCup that, at least financially, can be considered pretty much equal.
It goes without question that both competitions’ revenues can’t be compared with the EuroLeague in which 16 teams share 30 or more million euros per season. For example, the one million euros prize for the EuroLeague winners is added to all previous earnings of the club during the season due to its sports results, as well as the revenues every club gets from the market pool.
This leads to the EuroLeague champion receiving around four million euros in revenues as it was the case in the last two seasons. That means that the EuroLeague champ gets more money than all the EuroCup or all the Basketball Champions League teams combined.