By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
With Dejan Bodiroga and Marshall Glickman not yet approved as the new EuroLeague president and interim CEO respectively, while the Jordi Bertomeu era is near its end, the financial numbers of the EuroLeague have already surpassed the pre-pandemic levels and they are moving towards a new record.
Per the specialized in sports bussiness Spanish website “2Playbook”: “The forecast for 2022-2023 is that EuroLeague’s income will grow another 15% year-on-year and thus reach this figure. In addition, after losing 30% of sales in the first year of the pandemic, in which the competition was cancelled, it managed to rebound in 2020-2021 and exceed the turnover of 2018-2019”.
The same reports notes that under Jordi Bertomeu and the joint venture with IMG, which was launched in the 2016-2017 season the numbers improved vastly and the revenues of each club “will practically multiply by three in the 2022-2023 season compared to the 2014-2015 season”.
Meanwhile, EuroLeague’s viewership is enjoying a digital boom. As “2Playbook” reports: “The internal metric most used by the organization is interest, an annual report prepared by Nielsen that shows that since 2015-2016 interest in the league has grown by 30%. This is due to the digital boom, whose audience has multiplied by four since then, and the development of new markets. Audiences in France, Germany, Russia, Italy and the United Kingdom have grown by 120% since 2018-2019, and in the so-called core markets (Spain, Turkey, Greece, Israel and the Balkans) they have increased by 56%”.
It remains to be seen if the financial well-being of the league, which is practically guaranteed by the joint-venture with IMG will bring a consensus between the clubs with six of them (CSKA Moscow, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Maccabi T.A., Milan, Zalgiris) wanting a change of leadership and voting for the replacement of Bertomeu and five (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Fenerbahce, Anadolu Efes, Baskonia) strongly suggesting that Jordi Bertomeu must remain in his position.