By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Presenting his opinion on the results of a recent Euroleague Commercial Assets shareholders meeting in Barcelona and ensuing talks with FIBA and the NBA in Geneva, the president and chief executive officer of CSKA, Andrey Vatutin, posted a column on the Russian outlet, Sport Express.
“Anyone expecting this to be a de facto NBA expansion was sorely mistaken,” he described the developments in the partnership between FIBA and the NBA, widely labeled as NBA Europe, “European clubs will not play games against the Lakers, Celtics, or Knicks, they will not participate in the draft, and Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will not be making regular visits to our side of the Atlantic.”
“The plan envisions the creation of a new basketball organization under a globally recognized brand,” added Vatutin. “It will essentially be a carbon copy of the existing one, with a semi-closed pool of clubs that, within a single ecosystem, will be able to advance from a second-tier competition to the elite division. Games may be 48 minutes long, with three timeouts, but we don’t know those details yet.”
“The lack of specifics, among other things, will hinder rapid progress in negotiations,” he pointed out. “The plan is being based on the NBA’s commercial model and FIBA’s capabilities as a regulator. At the same time, it’s unclear how the tournament will integrate with national championships, what the conditions for club entry and participation will be, and much more. Once these basic details are clarified, all parties will be able to discuss further action in detail.”
“The NBA’s plans in Europe essentially look like an attempt to steal a rapidly growing business,” stressed the 52-year-old executive.
“After all, about ten years ago, the EuroLeague had virtually no market value, but now the brand is valued at more than €1 billion—we realized this during recent negotiations with potential investors. And the league has a real strategy that will triple these figures in the next five years. Clearly, this is still difficult to compare with the NBA business, and the US and European markets are very different, but steady, progressive progress is essential. As experts note, the EuroLeague is currently the most progressive sporting competition in the world in terms of economic growth and increasing popularity.”
“Cooperation with the NBA is certainly interesting”
Vatutin went into more detail, including the playing field being projected to exclude certain European markets.
“Cooperation with the NBA is certainly interesting. They know how to run a business and are sensitive to the needs of their fans. If we can establish a constructive partnership, that would be fantastic. At the same time, our American colleagues don’t have a magic wand,” he explained, “They won’t be able to magically transform select European clubs into franchises with billion-dollar budgets, give players €100 million contracts, or sign exorbitant deals with sponsors and television. It’s unlikely that FIBA will offer similar tools, as its total annual revenue from all competitions, national teams, and clubs is roughly equal to that of the EuroLeague and is not growing. Furthermore, the NBA has an unsuccessful project in Africa, which proved unprofitable and will be closed soon.”
“If a new competition is formed without the EuroLeague’s participation, it will undoubtedly be a sad event for European basketball. A purely commercial project, aimed at economically rich markets, ignores long-standing traditions and the interests of fan bases, effectively eliminating, for example, Serbia and Lithuania from the top landscape. Furthermore, it will divide the audience both globally and within individual cities, given plans to create basketball sections within football clubs in the cities where successful independent basketball clubs already exist,” he continued.
“If a European NBA is created without the EuroLeague’s participation, the EuroLeague itself will remain; it will simply retain the remaining clubs. And we will have yet another source of competition tearing our basketball apart. This will not lead to anything good from the point of view of the development of sports – we have already observed this and continue to observe it in the example of the EuroLeague’s confrontation with FIBA. Incidentally, for FIBA, collaboration with the NBA is currently a way to strengthen its position in an unfinished conflict.”
Vatutin additionally explained the current status of talks between the involved parties.
“That’s why the EuroLeague shareholder clubs are trying to present a united front on this project,” he mentioned, “Nine of the 13 clubs, including CSKA, have already signed license extension agreements; the remaining four will respond later. To be fair, it should be noted that these four clubs’ deliberations about their future somewhat blur the EuroLeague’s overall position, but they face serious decisions, so the delay in responding is understandable.”
“I won’t describe the proposal put forward by the clubs and the league—it was included in the press release. I hope it will become the basis for productive cooperation. We are ready for partnerships and certainly don’t want to wait in line to be selected for inclusion in the tournament.”
“It’s premature to discuss CSKA”
CSKA and the remaining Russian clubs have been suspended from Euroleague Basketball competitions since February 2022 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the Moscow outfit remains active in its role as a club shareholder.
“It’s premature to discuss CSKA’s prospects for becoming a participant in the new (or old) competition,” he explained, “We hope that if the geopolitical situation in Europe and the world becomes more clear, the outlines of some agreements emerge, and some kind of conflict resolution occurs, then we can discuss CSKA’s participation in a substantive manner. We are currently working with our EuroLeague colleagues with full engagement and interest on resolving issues with the NBA and other areas related to the future of the existing tournament. I have repeatedly stated that even this “limited” cooperation with the EuroLeague is beneficial now and can benefit not only CSKA but also other Russian clubs in the future.”