Sometimes, the price of the top table is downright distasteful to a basketball club. Ambition doesn’t require excess. Increasingly in recent times, plenty of clubs are saying no thanks to the chance to join the financial arms race in European basketball.
In the second part of this series, we asked if European basketball could pay for itself. Now it’s time to examine clubs who willingly don’t want to pay that price. The greatest example in recent times is JL Bourg, declining qualification to Euroleague because of the risk involved.
The Eurocup champions are far from alone. Unicaja Malaga left the Euroleague system to join the Basketball Champions League (BCL) and have thrived. Alba Berlin and Joventut Badalona took similar approaches.
We’ve entered a new phase in spending where teams are willingly saying no to excess, whereas before they’d desperately keep going until risking calamity.
Let’s talk about Bourg
When JL Bourg won Eurocup this past spring, it was one of the most likeable stories in the sport. Here’s a club from a town of just 42,000 people with a gym that can only hold 3,548 people, winning their first major honour after 116 years in existence.
That victory earned them a spot in the Euroleague, if they wanted it. The club examined expanding its arena to meet the Euroleague minimum of 5,000 seats but there were other factors to consider. The biggest would have been the overall cost increase, both in salaries and in far more travel.
The club, sensibly, realised that it would be jeopardising over a century of tradition for one season at the top table. The growth of Bourg has been gradual and sustainable. It chose the smarter option and took a 3+2 deal at Eurocup instead.
Unicaja Malaga got comfortable
There isn’t a team in European basketball that indicates the upsides of fiscal sensibility quite like Unicaja Malaga. Since leaving Eurocup as part of Euroleague’s ecosystem for the BCL in 2021, the south of Spain club has thrived.
The club’s Eurocup triumph in 2017 had been its only trophy since winning the Spanish (ACB) championship in 2006. Upon making the jump and being able to refocus its budget, the club has won a pair of BCL crowns, 2 Copa del Rey titles, along with 2 Intercontinental cups and a Supercopa Espana.
Crucially, their domestic performance increased substantially. In the five seasons since the switch, Unicaja has secured home court in the playoffs thrice, compared to just two occasions in the decade prior. The operating cost reduction helped the club refocus its spending and strengthen the overall roster and marketing operations as a result.
Even Valencia makes a good point
A team that just rocked up to the most recent Euroleague Final Four with a billionaire backer might seem odd to include here. Yet the bearish approach of Juan Roig and his staff point to a different approach to dining at the top table. Valencia has spent a lot, most notably the €400 million on Roig Arena. It just isn’t pouring all that much into salaries.
Enric Carbonell, the club’s GM, flat out said “Valencia Basket, by its very nature, cannot engage in multi-million dollar bidding wars for all its players against teams with much larger budgets. That’s not our model.” The club still relies heavily on patronage from Roig and will likely have a bumpy on-court season in the year to come.
The key difference of course is that it is built to sustain a bad year or two on the floor while still generating substantially revenue through the arena. The capital investment is only going to grow as a revenue driver which should enable a more competitive direct basketball budget that is sustainable. As ever, controlling the arena is crucial.
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The warnings are obvious
We don’t have to go all that far back in history to see what can happen when teams spend beyond their means. Even those that make the cautious choice often have matters catch up with them if it’s not made in adequate time.
Gran Canaria’s downfall has shown that. Like JL Bourg, they turned down an invite to the Euroleague after winning the Eurocup in 2023. They had previously played a single and very expensive season in the top flight before the pandemic.
The move to the BCL however seemed a step too late. At least in the short and medium term. The club’s 30 year stay in the ACB ended in relegation with the budget being slashed for next season in the second tier, mainly to ensure it remains viable. The club has survived, thankfully, but plenty of others have gone to the wall due to reckless ambition.
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The right fit matters
There’s the old line about the way around half of all men believe they could land a jumbo jet in an emergency. Of course, that’s wrong in two ways. Anyone can land a plane, only a few can do so and walk away from it.
When Alba Berlin left the Euroleague for the BCL, the club explicitly cited economics as the driver. The club has a long record of criticising what it considered excess spending in Euroleague. Whether that’s fair is a much tougher question to ask. Where Alba is right is that it was the wrong kind of spending for them.
The club wants the best financial result to enable it to deliver something that its fans want to see on a regular basis. While Euroleague is alluring, it is also draining. The extra revenue coming in was surpassed by what was going out. At the BCL level, Alba is in much more control of its fiscal destiny.
Ambition needs a return
Valencia won the ACB last season, in addition to making the Euroleague Final Four. JL Bourg won Eurocup, Unicaja Malaga reached its fifth straight BCL Final Four, and Alba Berlin reclaimed the Bundesliga title after a three year break.
These clubs have found success on their terms without breaking the bank or taking on excess risk. The planned arrival of NBA Europe makes life interesting for clubs of this ilk given its planned blend of permanent franchises and qualifiers.
Of course, there is another approach that has become popular of late. In part 4 we’ll examine what happens when investors value the market itself over the existing club. That’s a trend built on ambition but with potential to truly damage fan culture.
This is Part 3 in our five part series. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 now
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