Euroleague vs NBA: Gasol & the European Basketball Debate

The European basketball war continues to add players. And not just any ones. The last to enter the scene once again shake the board on which the Euroleague and the NBA elucidate the future of basketball on the continent. On Monday night, three major Real Madrid clubs (Berserkers, Ojos del Tigre and La Gran Familia) issued a joint statement in which they spoke out against a possible alliance between the white club and the NBA to join the new competition that the American League hopes to create in Europe starting in 2027 and, in this way, leave the Euroleague. “Our commitment is to a basketball in Europe in which we can face historical teams with a basketball tradition. And, today, that is not the approach that the NBA Europe project seems to offer in which, of the current Euroleague, only Real Madrid would be. Going alone to this new competition would be a mistake… Real Madrid must always play in the highest continental competition and that, today, cannot be offered by the NBA Europe project. It generates more shadows than lights in the sporting aspect and the economic one,” expressed the fans.

The position of the fans of the big clubs is a capital issue in the conflict. For the first time in the months that the battle has lasted, the fans of an entity have made public their opinion on which side the club should choose. Real Madrid is a key and strategic piece in the puzzle, the champion of champions, the team with the most European Cups (11, eight for CSKA and seven for Panathinaikos) and the only one among the European nobility that has taken more or less significant steps towards the NBA. “The club is working on a three-year plan. In the office I know that the view is very good in the medium and long term,” said Madrid coach Sergio Scariolo, before the last Euroleague classic. In an interview in As Last summer, shortly after his arrival, he expressed: “The structural change within the club demonstrates a modernization and a more look towards the way of doing things in the NBA. The general functioning of the section is going in that direction. My experience in the NBA can be useful.” Scariolo, an assistant with the Toronto Raptors between 2018 and 2021, and winner of the ring in 2019, has signed for three seasons.

The desire of the president, Florentino Pérez, is to unite two world brands: NBA and Real Madrid. Although the union may mean abandoning the Euroleague and playing a transition year in the Champions League organized by FIBA, an ally of the American giant. These plans, however, clash with the feelings of the white fans, who are opposed to their team, the greatest European symbol in the history and tradition of continental basketball, giving up playing each season to be European champions. The case is reminiscent of the one generated by the soccer Super League promoted by Florentino. Then it was the English fans who quickly shot down the project. Basketball can go the same way if more fans of the big clubs, Greek and Turkish especially, in addition to Madrid and Barça, show up.

Precisely, the Barça club has verbally committed to continue in the Euroleague for 10 more years, until 2036, although it reserves, like everyone else, an acceptable exit clause. Not even Pau Gasol’s mediation has served to convince Barça, for now, of a change of mind. The former center participated this past Sunday in London in a meeting between Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, and Barcelona officials on the occasion of the Orlando-Memphis match in the English capital, a match that followed the one that had been played three days before in Berlin. Pau, who played 18 seasons in the mecca of basketball, won two titles and has his jersey retired from the Lakers, promotes the European NBA project as a good connoisseur of both markets.

The battle is sporting and also economic. Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Fenerbahçe and Asvel have missed the January 15 deadline established by the Euroleague to sign, under certain conditions, the agreement that unites them until June 30. Barça is close to continuing and Madrid is doubtful, a split that leaves the future of the classic in European competition in the air. The European NBA plans to be born with 16 fixed teams and four variables that will access through the Champions League and the national leagues. Everyone, in any case, will have to put the money out of their pocket, as Silver said in Berlin: “The financing will initially come from the member clubs, from their investors. If we successfully launch this League, it will take a while to become profitable.”

The sentence fell like a bucket of cold water and contributed to that statement from the Madrid supporters’ clubs against the NBA. The North American colossus would not, therefore, solve the economic hole that the Euroleague is for many clubs: Madrid, champion of the 2023-24 season, for example, lost 27.8 million euros despite the victory. “It is very difficult for clubs to balance their accounts and the NBA is the sports organization in the world with the greatest capacity to generate business. The Euroleague is a great competition, but that ecosystem has 60% losses. That is not sustainable. The NBA is coming to solve that problem,” the president of FIBA ​​Europe, Jorge Garbajosa, recently explained in EL PAÍS. Ettore Messina, manager at Olimpia Milano, was suspicious: “The NBA is not Santa Claus.”

This past Monday, the NBA brought together clubs and investors in London. Madrid, Barça, Panathinaikos, Bayern, Olimpia and Alba Berlin attended, as well as soccer’s AC Milan (represented by Ibrahimovic) and the Saudi Sovereign Fund, PIF. Negotiations continue. According to the BBC, Manchester United and Manchester City have rejected the idea of ​​creating a basketball team to play in the new League. They already have the experience of the Super League that infuriated British fans. Now it is basketball fans who are beginning to raise their voices.