EuroLeague schedule: brace yourselves for unpleasant surprise next season / News - Basketnews.com

Credit: M. Didė/BasketNews illustration Credit M. Didė/BasketNews illustration

On July 14, EuroLeague published its 2022-23 season schedule, but European basketball fans will be in for an unpleasant surprise from the very first round of the new season.

Why's that?

After waiting for the return of the highest quality basketball for 4.5 months, the fans in Round 1 will be able to see only 2 full games out of 9 possible. By full game, I mean when you watch the game from the very start until the final buzzer.

It must be noted that in most cases, only basketball junkies and hardcore fans who want to watch as much basketball as possible will be affected by these clashes.

The biggest obstacle to watching more games is scheduling and timing.

In Round 1 specifically, all games are clashing. Therefore, people will be able to watch only one game on Thursday and another one on Friday.

Round 1 schedule

October 6, Thursday:

ASVEL vs. Armani Milan, 20:00 CET Panathinaikos vs. Real Madrid, 20:00 CET Maccabi vs. Zalgiris, 20:05 CET Valencia vs. Baskonia, 20:30 CET Bayern vs. Fenerbahce, 20:30 CET

October 7, Friday:

Efes vs. Crvena Zvezda, 19:30 CET ALBA vs. Partizan, 20:00 CET Virtus vs. Monaco, 20:30 CET Barcelona vs. Olympiacos, 20:30 CET

You can find the full schedule here.

As you can see, Thursday's games are separated by only 30 minutes, while Friday's – 1 hour. If Panathinaikos matchup against Real could make a case for being a headliner on Thursday, you can argue that all Friday's games are equally interesting and exciting.

Back-to-back champions Anadolu Efes will begin a new season hosting competitive Crvena Zvezda with head coach Vlada Jovanovic making his EuroLeague debut. Zeljko Obradovic and Partizan will make their return against ALBA and two other appealing games in Virtus vs. Monaco and Barcelona vs. Olympiacos.

In the best-case scenario, EuroLeague fans will be able to watch the full game of Efes vs. Crvena Zvezda and the second half of either Virtus vs. Monaco or Barcelona vs. Olympiacos. Or first half of Efes vs. Crvena Zvezda and full game of Virtus vs. Monaco or Barca vs. Olympiacos.

Either way, only one full game of these four matchups will be available.

So, is this a trend we will see throughout all EuroLeague regular season? Unfortunately, yes.

Out of possible 306 regular season games, EuroLeague fans will be able to see 107 full games live, which amounts to 35% or basically one-third of all regular season games.

Clarification: to say that you can watch two different games on the same evening, those matches should be separated by at least 1 hour and 30 minutes. Usually, the broadcasts take about 2 hours, so we gave EuroLeague a slight advantage in this regard.

For example, if Game A starts at 19:00 CET and Game B begins at 20:00, you will be able to watch either Game A or Game B fully. If Game A starts at 19:00 and Game B begins at 20:30, it is considered that you'll make it for both games.

Throughout the regular season, there will be Rounds where people will see 2, 3, or 4 full games of the round.

The good news is that half of 34 regular season rounds will have four games that you'll be able to see from start to finish. 12 rounds (35% of all 34 rounds) will consist of two visible full games, and the remaining five rounds (15%) will have three full games.

For comparison, since the 2016-17 season, when the current EuroLeague format was introduced, every single game week included at least three games that the fans were able to see from the beginning to the very end.

Knowing that it's no surprise that the upcoming 2022-23 season will be the least reachable to the fans, consisting of only 35% fully visible games (107 games out of 306 possible). Up until now, every other season was above or close to the 50% mark.

Disclaimer: 2019-20 season is not included due to its cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Season Full games available 2022-23 107/306, 35% 2021-22* 137/277, 49.5% 2020-21* 153/306, 50% 2018-19** 121/240, 50.4% 2017-18** 112/240, 46.7% 2016-17** 125/240, 52.1%

* - were rescheduled and/or suspended games** - only 16 teams were competing in the EuroLeague; therefore, the regular season games number is 240.

Of course, there are a few reasons behind it. Arguably, the main one is Russian teams being removed from the competition. Up until now, every game week started with one of the Russian teams' home games, which usually began at 19:00 CET or even at 18:00 CET in some cases.

Also, the rescheduled or suspended games in the 2021-22 and 2020-21 seasons created additional game days or space in the usual game days, which helped to avoid clashes.

So, who has the biggest influence on making the schedule?

According to Zalgiris Kaunas GM and president Paulius Motiejunas, it's TV partners and the EuroLeague.

"All we do is send our arena's availability," Motiejunas told BasketNews. "We're trying to make empty slots so the games can go ahead. But speaking of tip-off times, days [whether it's Thursday or Friday], it mostly depends on EuroLeague and TV partners. The clubs are not involved that much."

However, Motiejunas also added that there were no changes in the calendar making for the upcoming season specifically, and everything went ahead as usual.

So, you could argue that despite knowing that Russian teams won't participate in the upcoming season, EuroLeague did not really do its homework or adapt to the current situation.

This year, in some cases, AS Monaco, Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade, Zalgiris Kaunas, Anadolu Efes Istanbul, or Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul will take either 19:00, 19:30, or 19:45 CET slots. However, the problem is that the games will still clash.

A couple of examples.

Round 2:

Monaco vs. Anadolu Efes (19:00 CET) Crvena Zvezda vs. Panathinaikos (19:00 CET)

Round 3:

Zalgiris vs. Virtus (19:00 CET) Anadolu Efes vs. Valencia (19:30 CET) Fenerbahce vs. ASVEL (19:45 CET)

Round 31:

Crvena Zvezda vs. Valencia (19:00 CET) Zalgiris vs. AS Monaco (19:00 CET)

The question is whether such a dip in availability to watch full games could affect future TV deals, which is the lion's share of the revenue for the EuroLeague and most of its teams.

BasketNews contacted the EuroLeague office to ask how long one person or household needs to watch the broadcast, so it would be counted as a viewer in EuroLeague's official reports.

For example, if 10 minutes is enough, you can argue that after watching one quarter, the viewer makes the cut in the official reports, and technically the damage isn't that big on paper. However, EuroLeague did not specify its criteria in response to BasketNews.

"TV viewership by the game is the average number of spectators on each minute of the broadcast. This is a standard that ensures a robust reporting," the EuroLeague office stated.

Meanwhile, Motiejunas did not predict a possible outcome of such availability decline, adding that he understands the difficulties EuroLeague faces.

"The league is responsible for making everything as perfect as possible," Motiejunas told BasketNews. "They always know our [teams] position. We had discussions, and we understand that making a schedule that would appeal to everyone is very difficult."

"They [EuroLeague] have the experience, and we are not involved in it [scheduling] much. The only thing we [Zalgiris] ask is to get as many Friday games as possible, so it would be more convenient for the fans to come to the games," added Zalgiris GM and president.

Indeed, making a schedule to please everyone is a difficult job. There are national championships, domestic cups, exclusion of the Russian teams, and we are not even talking about FIBA windows.

However, at the same time, the much needed flexibility, outside of the box thinking, and proactivity is still missing.

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