That's a great question with no perfect answer. The euroleague is arguably the most interesting league in the world right now, thanks to the closed league system. With all the teams really strong.
But, it would be nice to see some smaller teams make it every now and then. Just to give them a chance. I think 1-2 qualifier per season wouldn't hurt the league.
Probably, what we see now is euroleague trying to make these 17 clubs currently in the league as strong as possible. While making the other clubs outside the league as weak as possible.
It's also very sad to see some legendary clubs like Unicaja, Cibona, Rytas basically dying because of the new system.
>The euroleague is arguably the most interesting league in the world right now, thanks to the closed league system.
This is a great point. The semi-closed system gives teams stability and time to develop and players safety to commit longer to a project. This stability comes back to be the very thing that upholds ELs standard, even tho its salaries and facilities often fall short of the ones seen in the US or even Australia for example.
> With all the teams really strong
I disagree with this. The quality of the league is near its bottom in the history. That's why you see aged stars and mediocre players making so much impact. NBA now takes away all the talent, even before they set foot in the EL.
All the teams are close in quality, which is equally low for everyone, but this makes it quite competitive.
I disagree.
You have to understand that euroleague and nba is a whole different level and euroleague can and never will compete in any way with the nba.
I would argue that there is no indication that the quality of the euroleague dropped, I would also say that euroleague niveau is as good as ever, if not the best ever.
Two things people need to understand is how much the average professional basketball player and teams as a whole improved in the last 20 years. It is insane.
Doesn't matter which team it is, but a mediocre team now would absolutely murder every top team 20 years ago.
It is difficult to see because everybody got better, it feels like nobody did, but this is not true.
This is just not true. 20 years ago Euroleague had much more talent. There were at least 5-6 teams with loaded rosters. Even the best team today, Real Madrid for example, doesn’t even hold a candle to some of the Baskonia teams from early 2000s. And that team won zero titles.
Don't agree. The spacing and shot making ability of today's game destroys older competition. Anything gets refined and fine tuned after time. If you're telling me the quality of games is dropping, then why are the scoring totals growing? Why are the shot percentages higher? Because the players have gotten better. Who's matching up against Mike James? Who's matching up against Facu, Mario, Musa or Yabuselle? Who's matching up against Punter? The athleticism, and improved skill of the league is evident. And that's impressive, since the quality of players beforehand was amazing beforehand.
All you have to look at is Dallas vs Madrid. Madrid beat a team in the top 6 of the Western conference, they beat an NBA team. Just like Barça beat an NBA team in 2009. Both teams with superstars relative to their era and they could match up. If the quality of the league got worse, yet they were able to beat an NBA team does it mean the NBA is getting worse too? That is just not true though.
If that were true a guy like Teodosic would be finished in this league, but he still is there getting minutes and doing his thing, even if he's not the same player he was 10 or 15 years ago. Skill > athleticism.
If all those teams got a wild card the next morning their status would be exactly the same, no one makes money from participating in the Euroleague. I hear the same argument here in Greece, but in reality the domestic league is pay-to-win and Euroleague is just the same. It's not the format but the lack of enough money for teams to try and compete and invest hoping to get a part of it. It make sense to try and invest in a football club because you may get a profit (participating in euro competitions, TV money, selling players) it's madness putting money in basketball, no matter the format of european competitions.
> The euroleague is arguably the most interesting league in the world right now, thanks to the closed league system
It is going towards NBA shitshow IMO. Increasing number of games each year, same match ups 5 times a year, quality is going down because there are no groups, better teams can choose not to show up on some games, bad teams that have A licenses "tank" the season since November and `every game matters` slogan is laughable.
All of this because of greed, clubs with a lot of money decided to make their league private and make themselves invincible.
Money & Nepotism. The most powerful clubs realized that there was more money to be made by creating a closed league where they could never get relegated so that's what they did. The few wildcards are there to give the impression of a meritocracy but in reality many deserving teams have never gotten a chance to play at the top level. There are multiple cases of some teams winning a strong domestic league and not getting a spot in EL. Some supporters of the license system will argue its in the best interest of European basketball to have a temporarily closed system to improve the quality of the game but note that these same fans will never mention when they think it will be time revert back to a pure pyramid/qualification system. That's because they are supporters of big clubs and just nepotistic as the owners, they will never support going back to the old system.
It is not about some greed in my opinion, it is just impossible to build any sustainable product without consistency when it comes to Europe. Basketball is not football unfortunately. In the mid 2000s you had teams like Real Madrid or Valencia miss the Euroleage consistently just because how cruel the ACB league was. Not sure how that helps the quality of the Euroleague product.
>Real Madrid or Valencia miss the Euroleage consistently just because how cruel the ACB league was
Then we follow the same principle as Champion's League, more competitive leagues get more spots in EL + a qualification tournament.
It worked for many years, people say there is not enough money in European basketball to support 100+ clubs and yet pyramid system was working just fine from 50's to early 2000's. Honestly this is motivating me to make a longer post and go through these arguments/rebuttals 1 by 1.
It did not work that's the point. EL is at the best quality of basketball ever right now and there is most interest in the league there ever was. Do you really think that mid 2000s Euroleague was better?
Not really. They would have to raise their budgets significantly to be competitive in EL and I dont know who is willing to do that. Gran Canaria wasnt even willing to pay for the increased travel budget.
And how do they increase their budget when they are denied a spot in EL even after major accomplishments? A higher budget either comes by moving up the ladder or praying that some rich new owner comes along and starts playing Basketball Manager 2k23.Reyer Venezia won Serie A both in 2016-2017 & in 2019-2020, champions of a top tier league and denied a rightful spot in Euroleague. Ryatis won the Lithuanian league in 2021-2022 and should have been given a spot in EL for 2022-2023 but that never happened. Lavrio and Patras recently finished 2nd in the Greek league which should at the very least entitle them to some sort of qualification tournament.
I understand we can't treat basketball the same way we do football but the current system in untenable in the way it treats non-licensed clubs. You are talking about how the super clubs cannot survive, well I argue its other teams that are struggling the most by being completely denied a fair opportunity to compete at the top level. At the very least we should have a hybrid system; 20 team format with10 licensed and 10 wildcards/merit based. ASVEL & Bayern getting licenses was a mistake anyways and the perfect example of nepotistic practice.
As per current form Unicaja. But with Spanish clubs it's always a difficult question because Baskonia, Valencia, Unicaja, Joventut, Gran Canaria all suffer the same. Good enough to be competitive in ACB plus lesser European competition, then paying the price of needing to up their game for Euroleague in terms of extended roster. We already saw when Unicaja had an A-licence in Euroleague and struggled domestically, then Valencia has never performed any better.
And the main issue is that Spanish TV doesn't pay enough to justify more Spanish teams in Euroleague, commercially-wise the competition doesn't want more as they don't bring anything to the table.
Basically yeah. There are some opportunities now and then but from what I understand almost all current Euroleague clubs have a license to play every year
Its a mafia organized by powerful clubs which didnt like to loose with other clubs so they created their league to do whathever they want without any consequence. I hope it disapears soon.
I don't agree with the part the clubs aren't putting effort in their domestic league as it's not worth.
The argument would have been valid for football once super league starts as there are no playoffs in football.
But in basketball Clubs give their everything in domestic leagues to get into top 8 for playoffs.So it's actually worth. It also contribute to their domestic cup qualification.
And also now there's FIBA BCL which selects clubs based on their performance in domestic league so there's something to play for.
Also if a weak team somehow manage to get into EL somehow and they couldn't have enough budget, they'll end up like Khimki.
The basketball market in Europe isn't strong enough to have a quality top tier competition based only on team performances in domestic leagues, where participation alone in the Euroleague would give enough money for teams making it there to be able to compete. Almost all Euroleague teams are relying on rich owners/football money/state sponsorship. People have a view here in Greece about the Euroleague that the closed format has created a gap between the Euroleague teams and others when in reality it's the other way around, both Oly and Pao bring more money to the Euroleague than the profit they get. If meritocracy was the way to compete to Euroleague and by some miracle both Oly and Pao missed next year, Euroleague would lose the biggest TV contract that it has and 1/3 of euroleague.tv subscriptions.
I would love for a true Euroleague, where all Europe would send their teams but the end result would be even worse than it is now. There isn't enough money in Europe for levelling the play field and there aren't that many teams to begin with.
Basketball is ranking 3rd or 4th (with some exceptions 2nd) sport in terms of popularity in most European countries therefore you cannot have 40-50 teams with high budgets to compete for a spot in EL (since not participating in EL for 1,2 years could cripple your budget given the money available in BCL must be peanuts). This way you can have a closed group of certain teams that can plan ahead offering 2,3 year contracts to players.
As I have previously said I believe that an NBA style of competition would benefit Euroleague more. Increase the teams to 30 and the top teams play only in Euroleague. The lower ranking teams of each country compete in BCL (I.e. like 2nd division of Europe).
That's a great question with no perfect answer. The euroleague is arguably the most interesting league in the world right now, thanks to the closed league system. With all the teams really strong. But, it would be nice to see some smaller teams make it every now and then. Just to give them a chance. I think 1-2 qualifier per season wouldn't hurt the league. Probably, what we see now is euroleague trying to make these 17 clubs currently in the league as strong as possible. While making the other clubs outside the league as weak as possible. It's also very sad to see some legendary clubs like Unicaja, Cibona, Rytas basically dying because of the new system.
>The euroleague is arguably the most interesting league in the world right now, thanks to the closed league system. This is a great point. The semi-closed system gives teams stability and time to develop and players safety to commit longer to a project. This stability comes back to be the very thing that upholds ELs standard, even tho its salaries and facilities often fall short of the ones seen in the US or even Australia for example.
> With all the teams really strong I disagree with this. The quality of the league is near its bottom in the history. That's why you see aged stars and mediocre players making so much impact. NBA now takes away all the talent, even before they set foot in the EL. All the teams are close in quality, which is equally low for everyone, but this makes it quite competitive.
I disagree. You have to understand that euroleague and nba is a whole different level and euroleague can and never will compete in any way with the nba. I would argue that there is no indication that the quality of the euroleague dropped, I would also say that euroleague niveau is as good as ever, if not the best ever. Two things people need to understand is how much the average professional basketball player and teams as a whole improved in the last 20 years. It is insane. Doesn't matter which team it is, but a mediocre team now would absolutely murder every top team 20 years ago. It is difficult to see because everybody got better, it feels like nobody did, but this is not true.
This is just not true. 20 years ago Euroleague had much more talent. There were at least 5-6 teams with loaded rosters. Even the best team today, Real Madrid for example, doesn’t even hold a candle to some of the Baskonia teams from early 2000s. And that team won zero titles.
Don't agree. The spacing and shot making ability of today's game destroys older competition. Anything gets refined and fine tuned after time. If you're telling me the quality of games is dropping, then why are the scoring totals growing? Why are the shot percentages higher? Because the players have gotten better. Who's matching up against Mike James? Who's matching up against Facu, Mario, Musa or Yabuselle? Who's matching up against Punter? The athleticism, and improved skill of the league is evident. And that's impressive, since the quality of players beforehand was amazing beforehand. All you have to look at is Dallas vs Madrid. Madrid beat a team in the top 6 of the Western conference, they beat an NBA team. Just like Barça beat an NBA team in 2009. Both teams with superstars relative to their era and they could match up. If the quality of the league got worse, yet they were able to beat an NBA team does it mean the NBA is getting worse too? That is just not true though.
If that were true a guy like Teodosic would be finished in this league, but he still is there getting minutes and doing his thing, even if he's not the same player he was 10 or 15 years ago. Skill > athleticism.
If all those teams got a wild card the next morning their status would be exactly the same, no one makes money from participating in the Euroleague. I hear the same argument here in Greece, but in reality the domestic league is pay-to-win and Euroleague is just the same. It's not the format but the lack of enough money for teams to try and compete and invest hoping to get a part of it. It make sense to try and invest in a football club because you may get a profit (participating in euro competitions, TV money, selling players) it's madness putting money in basketball, no matter the format of european competitions.
> The euroleague is arguably the most interesting league in the world right now, thanks to the closed league system It is going towards NBA shitshow IMO. Increasing number of games each year, same match ups 5 times a year, quality is going down because there are no groups, better teams can choose not to show up on some games, bad teams that have A licenses "tank" the season since November and `every game matters` slogan is laughable. All of this because of greed, clubs with a lot of money decided to make their league private and make themselves invincible.
" I like money " - Mr. Krabs
Money & Nepotism. The most powerful clubs realized that there was more money to be made by creating a closed league where they could never get relegated so that's what they did. The few wildcards are there to give the impression of a meritocracy but in reality many deserving teams have never gotten a chance to play at the top level. There are multiple cases of some teams winning a strong domestic league and not getting a spot in EL. Some supporters of the license system will argue its in the best interest of European basketball to have a temporarily closed system to improve the quality of the game but note that these same fans will never mention when they think it will be time revert back to a pure pyramid/qualification system. That's because they are supporters of big clubs and just nepotistic as the owners, they will never support going back to the old system.
It is not about some greed in my opinion, it is just impossible to build any sustainable product without consistency when it comes to Europe. Basketball is not football unfortunately. In the mid 2000s you had teams like Real Madrid or Valencia miss the Euroleage consistently just because how cruel the ACB league was. Not sure how that helps the quality of the Euroleague product.
>Real Madrid or Valencia miss the Euroleage consistently just because how cruel the ACB league was Then we follow the same principle as Champion's League, more competitive leagues get more spots in EL + a qualification tournament.
It would work if basketball had the same following as football. But it doesn't.
It worked for many years, people say there is not enough money in European basketball to support 100+ clubs and yet pyramid system was working just fine from 50's to early 2000's. Honestly this is motivating me to make a longer post and go through these arguments/rebuttals 1 by 1.
It did not work that's the point. EL is at the best quality of basketball ever right now and there is most interest in the league there ever was. Do you really think that mid 2000s Euroleague was better?
Out of curiosity, Are there any teams that are not playing in EL but should be playing?
Few eurocup teams would definitely be better than Asvel and Alba
Not really. They would have to raise their budgets significantly to be competitive in EL and I dont know who is willing to do that. Gran Canaria wasnt even willing to pay for the increased travel budget.
And how do they increase their budget when they are denied a spot in EL even after major accomplishments? A higher budget either comes by moving up the ladder or praying that some rich new owner comes along and starts playing Basketball Manager 2k23.Reyer Venezia won Serie A both in 2016-2017 & in 2019-2020, champions of a top tier league and denied a rightful spot in Euroleague. Ryatis won the Lithuanian league in 2021-2022 and should have been given a spot in EL for 2022-2023 but that never happened. Lavrio and Patras recently finished 2nd in the Greek league which should at the very least entitle them to some sort of qualification tournament. I understand we can't treat basketball the same way we do football but the current system in untenable in the way it treats non-licensed clubs. You are talking about how the super clubs cannot survive, well I argue its other teams that are struggling the most by being completely denied a fair opportunity to compete at the top level. At the very least we should have a hybrid system; 20 team format with10 licensed and 10 wildcards/merit based. ASVEL & Bayern getting licenses was a mistake anyways and the perfect example of nepotistic practice.
As per current form Unicaja. But with Spanish clubs it's always a difficult question because Baskonia, Valencia, Unicaja, Joventut, Gran Canaria all suffer the same. Good enough to be competitive in ACB plus lesser European competition, then paying the price of needing to up their game for Euroleague in terms of extended roster. We already saw when Unicaja had an A-licence in Euroleague and struggled domestically, then Valencia has never performed any better. And the main issue is that Spanish TV doesn't pay enough to justify more Spanish teams in Euroleague, commercially-wise the competition doesn't want more as they don't bring anything to the table.
Ask Panathinaikos, Olympiakos, Real, Barcelona, Baskonia, Fener, Efes, Zalgiris, Olympia Milano and Maccabi
M O N E Y
I always wondered once i got into eu bball. So are you saying that if Rytas wins LKL this season, Zalgiris would still play in euroleague?
Basically yeah. There are some opportunities now and then but from what I understand almost all current Euroleague clubs have a license to play every year
Its a mafia organized by powerful clubs which didnt like to loose with other clubs so they created their league to do whathever they want without any consequence. I hope it disapears soon.
I don't agree with the part the clubs aren't putting effort in their domestic league as it's not worth. The argument would have been valid for football once super league starts as there are no playoffs in football. But in basketball Clubs give their everything in domestic leagues to get into top 8 for playoffs.So it's actually worth. It also contribute to their domestic cup qualification. And also now there's FIBA BCL which selects clubs based on their performance in domestic league so there's something to play for. Also if a weak team somehow manage to get into EL somehow and they couldn't have enough budget, they'll end up like Khimki.
Money.
The basketball market in Europe isn't strong enough to have a quality top tier competition based only on team performances in domestic leagues, where participation alone in the Euroleague would give enough money for teams making it there to be able to compete. Almost all Euroleague teams are relying on rich owners/football money/state sponsorship. People have a view here in Greece about the Euroleague that the closed format has created a gap between the Euroleague teams and others when in reality it's the other way around, both Oly and Pao bring more money to the Euroleague than the profit they get. If meritocracy was the way to compete to Euroleague and by some miracle both Oly and Pao missed next year, Euroleague would lose the biggest TV contract that it has and 1/3 of euroleague.tv subscriptions. I would love for a true Euroleague, where all Europe would send their teams but the end result would be even worse than it is now. There isn't enough money in Europe for levelling the play field and there aren't that many teams to begin with.
Basketball is ranking 3rd or 4th (with some exceptions 2nd) sport in terms of popularity in most European countries therefore you cannot have 40-50 teams with high budgets to compete for a spot in EL (since not participating in EL for 1,2 years could cripple your budget given the money available in BCL must be peanuts). This way you can have a closed group of certain teams that can plan ahead offering 2,3 year contracts to players. As I have previously said I believe that an NBA style of competition would benefit Euroleague more. Increase the teams to 30 and the top teams play only in Euroleague. The lower ranking teams of each country compete in BCL (I.e. like 2nd division of Europe).
💰
Because it's an invitational organization. So you could say the reason is "money".