By Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
The best and most exciting piece of news after the 1st week of Top16 is not the competitive games, or the road wins, or even the high quality basketball performance between Olympiacos and Fenerbahce.
The most important fact after the first games, which proves that the new Top16 format is working miracles in marketing terms, is the number of fans who attended the premier in the gyms around Europe.
Yes, Euroleague still has a lot of road to travel in order to get the product to its deserving place, compared to the quality of basketball being desplayed – and the revenues of the top clubs are still a joke – but you have to give credit where it’s due.
In 8 games according to the official data a total of 84.359 tickets were sold! That gives an average of 10.543 tickets per game, even if the reality was a lot different with “Kobank Arena” of Belgrade and the Serbian basketball crowd making all the difference and boosting the average numbers.
Still, in 5 out of 8 gym, the stands were full, as you can see in this board.
Top5
Kobank Arena 21,374
OAKA 14,000
Zalgirio Arena 12,000
SEF 11,244
ABDI IPEKCI 10,411
The Greek standards
Despite the fact that Greece is still suffering from the greatest ever financial crisis, basketball is still holding up. That doesn’t has to do only with results, as the last three Euroleague’s ended up in the country, but also with the public interest. A total of 25.244 tickets were sold at OAKA and SEF, making the total number even bigger that the 21.374 total of Partizan.