An old tradition of BallinEurope is renewed in Berlin. On the eve of the Euroleague Final Four, Emmet Ryan is back with his annual address covering the league’s growth, the FIBA relationship, expansion, and more basketball things.
My fellow sportsball fans. It has been far too long since the annual eve of the Euroleague Final Four address was given. The tradition is renewed today and there’s a great deal to talk about. Much of it is good. As ever, when it comes to matters of the future there is cause for hope and concern. All the same, be it FIBA, Dubai, or general fandom, let’s get to it.
Cooperation is good
There were always two guaranteed losers with the FIBA and Euroleague civil war, namely the participants. With competition for eyeballs and spending in basketball alone fierce, there was also the matter of the sport competing with matters beyond hoops.
The armistice has shown immediate benefits. With Euroleague clearing up space in its calendar for international windows, the picture for casual fans is more fluid. There’s also the added benefit that anyone not on national team duty gets an extra rest. Wear and tear over a season is real. Rest helps.
It may seem small but seeing joint posts by Euroleague and FIBA channels on Instagram during the season was eye popping. The more ways both organisations can get more people to watch more basketball, the better for all involved. This is a clear positive. Now they should seek to build on it.
The culture is the phenomenon
If you visit this site regularly, you already know that fans in Belgrade, Athens, and Kaunas are great at creating an atmosphere. This season, with Partizan and Crvena Zvezda in particular through the regular season, the virality of that atmosphere was something else.
When people see that kind of intensity, emotion, and colour, they want more of it. They want part of it. Indeed, they want to be a part of it. For context, I can guarantee you that several people who read the top of this section were annoyed that I didn’t include their city. Sorry Istanbul, you have amazing fans across your clubs but you served an illustrative purpose for this article.
For longtime fans, it’s probably a little odd. To them, this has long been the norm. Outside of the confines of supporters of Euroleague or even FIBA national competitions, it’s having a breakout moment. How the powers that be in basketball study this and build on it, if they do at all, will prove important to the game’s growth.
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We have to talk about expansion
This isn’t just about Dubai but it has to begin with Dubai. Last September, on my way back from the FIBA World Cup, I was sat in the airport in Dubai waiting for my connection home. There was footage of a game from that season’s UAE league on. The gym was rec league stuff and the standard wasn’t exactly enthralling.
The project there is creating something quite new and it’s not building on an existing culture for the sport. What there is to build on is interest in the bright lights and razzle dazzle. Euroleague’s cultural phenomenon isn’t the NBA, not just in size but also flavour. You can’t just build a Partizan or Panathinaikos out of the box. It takes time and work.
Investment coming into the sport is good but it’s worth thinking about the purpose of said investment. There’s value when clubs build cultural relationships with a fanbase and grow from there. It’s no accident that the most successful billionaire buyouts in football, both commercially and in terms of results, have come with clubs that already had a strong culture in that respect. Both my cold business heart and my warm sporting soul question the potential benefit of a brand new entity.
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Questions remain in more logical markets
London and Paris long made sense as places to grow basketball. Paris Basketball (such a generic name) will join Euroleague next season. They aren’t exactly turning away throngs of people at the Adidas Arena yet. The step up in class to Euroleague will also be a ferocious test of their ability to grow support. It’s much easier to gain fans when you are winning.
London Lions appear to have a more tenuous future. They won FIBA Eurocup Women this year but look to be downscaling their women’s operation next season. The men’s side won the British Basketball League regular season and playoffs, along with making the Eurocup semi finals. Now, their overall situation appears to be in flux and the distance from Euroleague having a team in the UK capital is widening again.
In essence, the root of their issue is the same one that raises questions about Dubai. A short-term jump, the franchise model essentially, is hard to make work in Europe. While a continent of distinct cultures, in sport we are used to our clubs developing over decades even when success appears to come overnight.
Play-ins are good but big gaps are worrying
The introduction of the play-ins this season did something that was expected for a while. Too many teams were falling out of contention to have anything beyond the regular season far too early in the campaign. You don’t want everyone to believe they have hope for the whole campaign but there were too many sides with too little to car about following the national cup break.
The play-ins resolved that, even though neither play-in winner made it through to the Euroleague Final Four. Coupled with the restructuring of Eurocup, which had the opposite issue of not enough peril, and the overall format makes for more games that matter longer into the season.
The two exceptions in this discourse were, of course, LDLC Asvel and Alba Berlin. The French club tidied up its record somewhat down the stretch, going 4-6 in its final 10 games. Still it and last placed Alba, which finished 5-29 with 11 straight losses, were worryingly far off from everyone else in quality.
There will almost inevitably always be a couple of teams that are out of their depth every season. Still, the hope would be that these sides find ways to build more competitive rosters so the overall value of the product, again both in terms of fan interest and commercial value, grows.
So where from here?
The overall picture is positive. The potential for increased collaboration between FIBA and Euroleague, particularly if a merger of the Basketball Champions League and Eurocup comes to pass, is strong.
The sport is strong in Europe but finding ways to use the growth of NBA interest on this side of the pond remains a challenge. That is really a tertiary concern for now. Building the culture of fandom and growing from it is where the immediate potential is, far more than any single investor looking to make it big.
We’ve always known that people care about basketball in Europe. Now, more non basketball people are starting to realise that. This makes me quite hopeful for the future at large, albeit still somewhat cautious.
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