THE Andrei Vatutin considers that his coming NBA Europe it looks like an attempt to exploit her commercial success Euroleague and thinks that it will only do harm to European basketball. However, the president of CSKA Moscowwhich remains its shareholder Euroleaguesays he is open to working with the NBA. In detail, in an article in the Russian press he states:
“The plans for NBA Europe now literally look like an attempt to steal a fast-growing business. After all, about 10 years ago, the Euroleague had no market value, today its brand is valued at more than a billion euros, and we learned this during recent negotiations with potential investors. And the league has a specific strategy to triple this value in the next five years… According to experts, the Euroleague is currently the fastest growing sports competition on the planet in terms of economic growth and popularity.
Working with the NBA is certainly interesting. They know how to run a business and understand the needs of the fans. If we can form a constructive partnership, that would be great. At the same time, their American partners do not have a magic wand. They won’t be able to turn European clubs into franchises with billion dollar budgets, give players $100 million contracts or secure huge sponsorships and TV deals. It is unlikely that FIBA ​​will offer similar tools, as its annual revenue from all competitions, national teams and clubs is about the same as the EuroLeague – and not growing. In addition, the NBA already had an unsuccessful project in Africa, which was unprofitable and will soon be canceled.
However, if the new organization is formed without Euroleague participation, it would certainly be a bad development for European basketball. A purely commercial project, focused on financially rich markets, ignores the long-standing traditions and interests of the fan base and effectively excludes, for example, Serbia and Lithuania from the top basketball scene. There would also be audience division – globally, but also within individual cities – as there are plans to create basketball divisions within football clubs, where independent basketball clubs already operate successfully.
It is clear that if a European NBA is formed without the Euroleague, the Euroleague itself will survive — it will preserve the remaining clubs. And we’ll have another source of division, which is tearing basketball apart. That would be detrimental to the growth of the sport — something we are already seeing, and continue to see, in the conflict between the Euroleague and FIBA. Incidentally, for FIBA, cooperation with the NBA is currently a way to strengthen its position in a conflict that is far from being resolved.
Because of all this, the Euroleague member clubs try to present themselves uniquely in relation to this project. Nine of the 13 clubs, including CSKA, have already signed agreements for license extensions, with the remaining four to be announced later. To be fair, these clubs’ discussions about their own futures somewhat cloud the overall Euroleague stance, but they are facing serious decisions, so the delay is understandable. I won’t describe the proposal submitted by the clubs and the league — it’s already been announced in the official statement. I hope it will become the basis for productive cooperation. We’re ready for partnerships and we certainly don’t want to wait in line to be selected for the tournament.
It is too early to talk about the chances of CSKA participating in a new (or existing) competition. We hope that if the geopolitical situation in Europe and the world is clarified, some agreements will be reached and conflicts will be resolved, so that we can talk about CSKA’s participation in a more concrete way. We are currently working with colleagues from the EuroLeague who are engaged and dedicated to solving issues related to the NBA and other areas concerning the future of the existing competition. I have already said several times that even this cooperation with the Euroleague is useful now and can be useful not only for CSKA but also for all Russian clubs in the future».
Source: Sport Fm
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