By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
The press conference of Euroleague CEO Jordi Bertomeu in Athens was about the “no violence” campaign in collaboration with Sportingbet, but it produced news and it’s obvious that Euroleague, taking the high ground in the dispute with FIBA, wants their future collaboration.
For the first time a member of the IMG was presented in the panel, Adam Kelly who is the senior vice president, head of global business development at IMG Media and he said the following: “For me, this project has been in close development for almost two years, and four months ago we announced the partnership. It’s important to express that we have a binding relationship with the Euroleague. We support this project financially but also structurally, most importantly. Why have we taken this very strong move? Normally we’re an agency that operates in the background. If you’re not in the industry, maybe you would not have heard of us, because IMG is on the business side of sport. But this is huge for us because we see a huge amount of potential in the Euroleague and Eurocup and we think it will transform the scenario for basketball in Europe. Why do we believe so strongly in this? Because it’s a project that the broadcasters, marketing partners, sponsors, coaches, players, teams, digital entities all believe in, too. Everyone really understands what we are trying to build. It is a clear vision. We are going to make the Euroleague into a super-premium product, even better than what it is today. We will do that by reinforcing the structures of club basketball in Europe”.
Kelly spoke about the deal and denied any notion about the ammount of money reported is wrong: “It’s a new era. The financial support is strong, in fact it’s larger than what you have seen in the press, and that’s because we believe in it. The market looks more positive than we anticipated, and in the coming weeks we’ll have even more announcements.
Bertomeu emphasized once more that Eurocup has the same importance with Euroleague in the joint venture and on the matter of the dispute with FIBA he said: “We are not at war with anyone. We are working in order to make our product better. FIBA wants to be more involved in club competitions. After all, they alreay have one this season (ed. FIBA Europe Cup). It’s good. Everyone who works for basketball is doing good”. And Kelly added: “We see a future together with FIBA”.