It’s a simple question. Can European basketball actually pay for itself? There’s more revenue but spending has risen too. A sport being richer doesn’t always mean it is healthier.
The financial cocktail that makes up any sporting entity in Europe is intriguing. When it’s a sport other than football, you can often add football money as part of the recipe. How much money is generated directly from basketball, through the largesse of owners/investors, public funding, and, the scary bit, debt matters.
Two European basketball clubs are capable of having identical budgets but wildly different states of fiscal health. That makes for some frustratingly inconsistent accounting, especially when some clubs exist as outright entities and others are technically departments.
That makes the interesting numbers to observe not so much the overall spent but, rather, how much of that basketball can pay for on its own.
So, what is sustainability?
I’ve been cautiously bullish on the overall sustainability of European basketball in recent times. To be more cold-hearted, the key question to ask in the short term is do basketball operations in Europe actually make money?
This should include all revenues, especially arena control as that has been sorely underrated by sports entities across Europe for decades. Smart spending is important here. Zalgiris is a great example here. It spent more than its expected earnings last season but had factored in the cost with prior accumulated profits.
That is remarkably different from hoping an owner meets a shortfall. Reinvesting existing revenue is a good thing. The most basic goal, and most vital to clear, is to be able to show that the basketball operation can be reasonably financed without continual need of rescue from its backers.
The football club model is a mix
No two clubs are not like each other should be a recurring theme in this. Take FC Bayern Basketball. By hoops standards, at least at the top level, they’re very young yet is already profitable and has real liquidity in its accounts https://fcbayern.com/en/news/2025/11/fc-bayern-munchen-ev-vice-presidents-reports-at-the-agm. The blend of BMW Park and SAP Garden has worked for them, with the sellouts the norm.
Then we look to Spain, where FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are both far from self-sustaining. They, of course, have enormous football clubs behind them and decades of history of being backed by said club.
The relative youth of FC Bayern as a serious basketball operation is a key difference here. The broader FC Bayern operation started this with a plan to be self-sustaining. It knew that it would need support early but it has successfully been able to wean it off in a reasonably short time.
Zalgiris is a strong model to follow
The club is the parent of a multi-sport model, as opposed to say FC Bayern or Real Madrid where they are clearly not the top department. Furthermore, it provides more transparency over its finances than most.
The 2024/2025 season saw it exceed expected income by €2.1 million through a mix of profits on player sales and a big bump in ticket & other fan-related revenues. While the former is prone to wild variability, the latter can be sustained and built. While Lithuania is rare in its basketball mania, there was no shortage of factors working against the club.
The 300,000 population of Kaunas is on the smaller end of mid-sized. Furthermore, Lithuania only ranks 18th of 27 EU states on Purchasing Power Standard (PPS) and only 7th of 10 when in GDP per capita it comes to all nations with Euroleague sides. If Zalgiris can succeed with these challenges, then it’s possible for others in more affluent but less basketball mad markets to do so.
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Fenerbahce switching up the scale
Fenerbahce have one big advantage on Zalgiris, namely the size of potential fanbase. That partially negates the challenges of Türkiye being 9th of 10 nations with Euroleague clubs on GDP per capita.
The club has been quite open in recent years about its financial state. The Euroleague title winning season of 2025 came with losses of between €4 million and €5 million. The goal for the season just gone was to break even, which would have been a first ever for the department. All soundings at the time of publication indicated this had been achieved.
Much of that success has been built on smarter marketing. Even Yellow, the mascot, has proven an effective driver of revenue through tie-ins. A club like Fenerbahce is a really positive indicator. Finding ways for departments other than football to stand on their own two feet is vital for multi-sport clubs.
Greece shows revenue alone isn’t enough
The increased revenue of Panathinaikos, fuelling its spending surge, has been the talk of Euroleague the past few seasons. While results for the season just gone aren’t in, turnover jumped from just under €32 million in the 2023/24 season to just over €42 million in the 2025/26 season. These seasons came with losses of around 43 million and €2.5 million each.
Part of that growth is down to the 49 year right to fully manage the OAKA, which provides a real long-term revenue driver to the club. The more this is exploited, along with other revenue models being expanded, the more positive the outlook. Similarly, Olympiacos saw its revenue go from €18.2 million in revenue in the 2023/24 season to the €25.5 million a year later.
That, of course, came with far more significant losses than Panathinaikos, with losses rising from €5.8 million to €16.6 million year on year. Crucially, the Reds now also have a 49 year lease on the SEF. That increased revenue source should prove enormous in narrowing the gap on the balance sheet. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, arenas should be capital assets not regular expenses.
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No one-size fits all
Homogeneity is as boring in basketball business as it is on the court. There are many ways of succeeding but finding what works involve understanding the asset and what it needs to do in order to deliver. FC Bayern have been built from a multi-sport brand, Zalgiris maximise a basketball made local market, while Fenerbahce have converted the scale of their brand into greater revenue.
The arena control held by the Greek giants is a big step forward but is far from the last one either will make. Innovation in revenue generation is vital towards maintaining sustainability. The good news is that European basketball clubs are getting better at making money. Of course, not everyone is taking such an aggressive approach.
In part three, we’ll examine the approaches of JL Bourg, Unicaja Malaga, Valencia BC, and others. These are clubs that are explicitly avoiding the spending race while still succeeding on their own terms.
This is part 2 of a 5 part series. Read part 1 here.
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