An exclusive interview was given to BasketNews by the sports director of Partizan, Zoran Savic.
The veteran tall argued the reasons why the Belgrade side deserve a permanent place in the Euroleague. In fact, one of his main criteria was the state aid that the club receives from Serbiaemphasizing that such a thing is much safer than an administration that he puts money out of his pocket and giving as an example the money the family has invested Giannakopoulou for Panathinaikos.
In detail what he said:
“We meet all the conditions for a type A license. We have fans. Our financial situation is much, much, much better than when I joined the club in March 2021. We have made an incredible difference. The arrival of Zeljko Obradovic was decisive. And most importantly: we are not so dependent on the state. We try to reduce their help every season and make more money ourselves. All this will be analyzed by the president of the club at a later stage.
Partizan is supported by the state of Serbia, but the state will not disappear, it will always exist. In my opinion it is more dangerous when an owner pays for everything out of pocket. When I worked at Fortitudo, my boss paid for everything. I think he had spent around 100,000,000 million. The Panathinaikos family has spent over 400,000,000 million. I believe they don’t even know how much they have spent. This is riskier than government aid.
This year we sold 16,800 season tickets. If we could we would have sold 25,000 or 30,000. It’s hard to explain. We don’t give free tickets to anyone. Everyone pays, even the scouts who come from the NBA. Zeliko gave 30,000 for tickets. I bought 20 lifetime. Everyone pays.
We have raised prices. Our seasons may be more expensive than Barcelona’s, Real Madrid’s, Armani’s, but the fans know that this is the only way we can compete with these clubs.
I don’t know why everyone underestimates the Balkans. After Spain, here is the largest television audience watching the EuroLeague. There are 23 to 25 million inhabitants in the Balkans and many of them love basketball. It’s the number one sport here, so we can make a lot of money from TV rights.
3 years ago, France did not bring in a single euro from television. They were showing the matches online. Who was paying for the production? IMG and the EuroLeague. The cost was 2.5 million euros for both teams, Villeurbanne and Monaco. They were losing money instead of making money. If Bayern didn’t exist in the EuroLeague, it would be difficult to make money from TV rights in Germany. Russia; Three teams brought in 300,000 euros from the televisions when they were in the competition. In the NBA they make 10 or 15 billion a year.
Since we don’t have an A license, we don’t collect any of that money. It’s not easy to compete with the big clubs when you don’t get anything from TV. Last year 345,000,000 people saw Partizan. We were second in the EuroLeague behind Real, who played in the Final Four. If we had gone to Kaunas we would have been even more visible. For us type A license is the first choice, I think we deserve it.
The area may seem dangerous, but we also work on selling impressions. We have increased them by 100 times compared to three years ago. I think we can have a similar budget every season. Last year, 600,000 people visited Stark Arena. If everyone spends three to five euros on a coke, a water or something like that, that’s serious money, which the state benefits from. We have no debt. We pay our salaries and other obligations at the same time. This has not always been the case at Partizan over the past 20 years. Here, they always paid wages first and then taxes.
We always talk about fair play, but teams from Greece or Spain start the season with 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 euros, which they earn from TV rights, licenses and everything else. We start from scratch. It would be fair to have 16 or 18 teams with long licenses, sharing the same money at the start of the season.
We don’t know anything about the team from Dubai. Nobody knows anything. I think the 13 teams with long licenses will have a lot of questions to answer and will decide everything in April. I don’t think they have decided yet, because there are many parameters. We don’t know what their requirements are or what they want. We know about Dubai, but we don’t know if he will be in next season or beyond.
Right now the teams have a lot of power. It wasn’t like that at the start of Jordi Bertomeu’s tenure. There are always negatives and positives to it. The EuroLeague chief executive and president have one-year contracts and we have to think about the next ten years. It will be difficult for 13 teams to make a unanimous decision. They need to see what they want. There is Partizan, London, Paris, Dubai. But we must not lose this area. Money is important to everyone. But it is important to have money, but also history. I think every day we prove that we deserve to be in the EuroLeague for a long time.
In my opinion, the system with 18 teams and all-vs-all games is the best format. More clubs mean more trouble. If you split the teams into two regions, it might happen that Barcelona or Real Madrid don’t visit Belgrade for a season or two. And people pay money to see all the teams. A total of 20 teams, with everyone playing everyone, would be incredible. But I understand that the Spanish clubs have the ACB league and that it would be difficult to fit another four matches into their calendar. With 20 clubs, they would have had at least nine hellish weeks. That could mean more injuries.”
Source: Sport Fm
I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
