EuroLeague CEO: ‘NBA Europe is not needed. We’ve been here for 25 years’
EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas is on bullish form. European basketball is a hot topic and his organisation, which runs the competition home to continental giants such as Real Madrid and Panathinaikos, has just begun a new season in good shape.
It has a new main sponsor in Etihad Airways, a new deal with Adidas and a new club from Dubai – part of a bold push into the Middle East market. Commercial revenues are up despite doing away with a title partner and TV income is also buoyant, says Motiejunas. So far, so promising.
“The league is growing like crazy,” he tells Morning Wire. “The TV deals are improving, especially in mature markets, fans are coming to the arena, so it’s really encouraging and really motivating, because the growth is amazing. We keep the same product on the court, the competition level remains the same, but we as a league took a huge step forward to increase the revenues.”
There is an elephant in the room, however: the NBA’s much-touted plans to launch a European league in collaboration with world governing body Fiba, whose Champions League is a direct competitor to EuroLeague but lacks its famous clubs.
NBA Europe is slated for launch by 2027 but is still in the conceptual stage. If the plans for a league featuring new franchises in London, Paris and Berlin as well as historic giants from Madrid, Barcelona and eastern Europe solidify, they will represent an existential threat to EuroLeague.
Motiejunas has held talks with the NBA and Fiba, who have courted some of EuroLeague’s biggest teams. It’s clear, however, that he is yet to be convinced to hitch his organisation’s wagon to the ambitious project.
“We’ve talked to them numerous times. Our key takeaway is this: there’s no need to do this new league. We are here for 25 years. We have a really good competition. We are growing the competition,” he says.
“We want to make EuroLeague a tier one competition and these rumours like a team in Manchester, a team in London, they don’t help.
“We’ve always said the UK, Italy, France are the core markets we’re willing to grow. And we have been investing in that for five or 10 years, and we continue to invest.
“We agree on 90 per cent of what they’re saying. We need to sit down and think how we can do it together. Because I strongly believe that, if we join forces, I don’t envy the other sports in Europe, because we grow like crazy and with their brand and everything.”
EuroLeague remains open to NBA talks
The NBA’s plan is predicated on a belief that, for all of EuroLeague’s growth, the game remains commercially under-exploited for its popularity on this side of the Atlantic. For Motiejunas, the devil is in the detail, which he says has been “vague”.
“How do we approach sponsorship? How do we approach a TV deal? What kind of events can we organise if we start to work together on all this to have more eyes, especially in these big markets?” he adds.
“Because we know that some markets are more pro-NBA when it comes to watching their games. France and the UK is probably also a good example. When the NBA comes to London it’s a sell-out, but it’s once or twice per year. If you have a team that’s 30 games.”
While the NBA’s bankers, JPMorgan and Raine, step up talks with prospective franchise investors, Motiejunas insists that, however his own discussions with the American league develop, EuroLeague is in no mood to go anywhere.
“Of course, everybody’s in favour when the NBA comes and says ‘let’s talk’. It’s the biggest basketball competition in the world. But when we go down to business, I’m sorry, we have more experience than they do, especially in Europe,” he says.
“I’m always optimistic, and we as EuroLeague always remain optimistic and open. But when I say open, we have a good product, we have a growing product. We are ready to continue, and we will continue.”