Marshall Glickman, Managing Director of the EuroLeague, wants to expand despite the already packed basketball calendar. “We have to enlarge the league. I don’t have a magic format now, but 18 teams is not enough,” the American told the Israeli Internet portal Walla!.
Currently, 18 participants in the European premier class are playing a main round with return games. This is followed by the play-offs, starting with the quarter-finals. “Maybe we should think about more playoff rounds,” Glickman said.
At least in the coming season, no team from Dubai will take part in the competition, but the topic “interests us,” said Glickman. The Dubai Basketball Club has been negotiating with the EuroLeague for a long time about a potential entry.
But there are other candidates. “I believe that Paris and London will be part of the EuroLeague in the future,” said Glickman. “Five years ago we did a study with Deloitte and saw that it was possible to expand the markets in Germany, France and England.”
This season, the cup winners Bayern Munich, who have permanent starting rights (A licence), and champions Alba Berlin are also playing. The league does not take the international game windows of the world association FIBA into account, which is why the German national players of EuroLeague representatives national coach Gordon Herbert are regularly absent from qualifying games.
“We want the big players to also play for their national teams,” said Glickman. “The question now is how to organize the schedules, that’s the biggest challenge and it’s not easy.” However, expansion would only increase the problem.