By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
FIBA has decided to do it like FIFA, when it comes to each continent’s championships and of course the World Cup, which after all owes its new name to FIFA. So, from 2017 the plan is to have Eurobasket once every four years and the same goes for World Cups.
Now, let’s take a look at Euroleague, which has an anthem similar to UEFA’s standards and they changed the Top16 format, after they saw what’s going on at Champions League -in order for the project be more lucrative to anybody who may concern. Our list has way more examples on how basketball is following football’s steps for the best. But when it comes to money, there is no connection. Nada. Nula. Zip.
As we were trying to find out how much money a Euroleague team can make each season, compared to a Champions League’s team, we realized UEFA has everything on it’s website, while Euroleague protect them, like these numbers are a top secret. And there is a good reason for that.
We are going to ask from you to think a number about the money an undefeated team (from the first day of the regular season till the… grand finale) can get, the moment they conquer the trophy at the Final Four. Are you thinking something like way more than a million of euros? Think again. But please, this time count 7.000 euros for its victory (by the way, at Champions League they have a 1 mil. euros bonus for each win). Yes, that’s 189.000 euros if you can go… all the way (the total of 27 games).
Now, add the 250.000 euros the champions are getting for their title bonus (the UEFA Champions League winner get 10.5 mil. euros), while the finalist gets 125.000 euros,the third 75.000 euros and the fourth 50.000 euros each (in football the runner-ups receive 6.5 mil. euros, of course each).
Yeap, the total of 439.000 euros is the best they can get – plus the ticket sales which for sure are not going to make the clubs’ owners millionaires – IF they don’t pay any fine. But all these years there was no team getting all this money (as no team reached the end of the road without being defeated). And you know that CSKA Moscow has reportedly a 33.000.000 euros budget, while Regal Barcelona reached this season – again reportedly – a 27.000.000 euros budget (with our sources stating that Navarro is getting something like 2.4 mil. euros and Lorbek being the most expensive player, with 2.7 mil. euros) and… we can only guess what’s going on in Turkey.
There is not even a… cent for qualifying to the Top16 (at Champions League each team picks up 3.5 mil. Euros for entering the second phase of the competition), the same goes for play offs (the quarter finalists in the premier football, aka soccer for our US readers, competition get 3.9 mil. euros each) and the Final Four (the semi-finalists in football become richer by 4.9 mil. euros each).
Wait a minute. We kept the best for last. While at Champions League each of the 32 sides involved in the group stage, collect a base fee of 8.6 mil. euros, the Euroleague teams give a check of 100.000 euros if they are the owners of a B’ license and of 300.000 euros for the A’ license clubs, as a guarantee that they wont leave the competition, before the end of their contracts. After the end of the season, they get them back and they return them to Euroleague, before the first jump ball of each season.
Also, Euroleague keeps the 20% of the revenues for the TV rights, which they insists on handling by themselves (they don’t allow to the teams to have their own contracts). And they get all the money from the billboard advertisements you can see on each arena -and as they say, these money are the ones the teams get for each win. It will be interesting to see the European basketball landscape specially after the financial fair play rule kicks in.