From thousands to millions: how much money do EuroLeague teams make from playoffs games? / News - Basketnews.com

Credit: Noam Galai, Olympiacos BC | BasketNews/E.Alšauskas Credit Noam Galai, Olympiacos BC | BasketNews/E.Alšauskas

The history is ruthless to those who lost the first two games of the EuroLeague playoffs. None of these teams advanced to the Final 4.

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But extending the series to at least Game 4 for some teams is crucial not only to keep their playoff hopes alive.

Behind a pure sports ambition, there's also a vital financial factor. Playing at least two home games in the EuroLeague playoffs usually means extra money. If this opportunity is used wisely, that means a lot of money.

It's essential for clubs that make money by themselves and are not highly dependent on wealthy owners.

Zalgiris Kaunas comes as one of the best examples. In season 2018-19, the Lithuanian champs made around €1.5M from ticket sales of the two playoff home games against Fenerbahce Istanbul, sources say BasketNews.

For instance, that was almost 13% of their total season budget. In 2017-18, Zalgiris revenues from two playoff games vs. Olympiacos Piraeus were slightly above €1M.

For EuroLeague teams, who mainly live from ticket sales, that's as crucial as oxygen.

It's important to mention that Zalgiris season ticket holders had to re-purchase tickets for the playoffs because the playoff games weren't included in the season tickets package.

That's the same way Bayern Munich approached the ticketing for the playoffs this year.

Per BasketNews sources, Bayern will make around €175k from Game 3 ticket sales. Audi Dome accommodates 6.7k fans, and the gym for the Barcelona game will be packed.

The revenues from Game 4 should be even higher because Bayern uses a progressive ticketing strategy with ticket prices rising on demand. The demand went extremely high when Andrea Trinchieri's team stole the home-court advantage in Barcelona.

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It is a very substantial income for Bayern. The basketball team has no ties with the football club and lives independently. Also, due to strict covid restrictions in the Bavaria region, Bayern played a few EuroLeague home games in an empty gym, which caused significant financial losses.

With the estimated ticketing revenues, Bayern might even surpass Olympiacos Piraeus.

The Greeks had sold out in Game 1 of Monaco's series (11,580) and almost packed the entire Peace and Friendship Stadium in Game 2 (10,457).

Per BasketNews sources, Olympiacos made more than €400k combined.

The Reds had around 3000 season ticket holders who didn't need to pay for playoff games.

Maccabi would have benefited a lot from putting all playoff tickets on sale. However, the EuroLeague playoff games were included in season tickets.

Maccabi didn't make the playoffs since 2016-17, so including potential Top 8 games to the season tickets package put an extra value for already expensive tickets.

The Maccabi season tickets price ranged from €424 to €3,340. That doesn't even involve courtside seat tickets.

Before season 2021-22, Maccabi sold around 9.5k season tickets. The Menora Mivtachim arena accommodates up to 10.8k fans.

Anadolu Efes, the average EuroLeague attendance leader of the season (10,497), announced a sold-out for Game 4 the same night Ergin Ataman repeated that Milan would see a much better playoff atmosphere in the Sinan Erdem Arena.

However, when it takes Efes, you never know how many of these tickets were actually sold and how many were just distributed for free.

Efes basketball club is a part of a giant Anadolu Group, owned by Efes president Tuncay Ozilhan. The companies in its portfolio include Anadolu Efes, Coca-Cola, Celik motor, other tourism agencies, restaurant and supermarket chains, etc.

Per BasketNews sources, the employees of these companies often get tickets to Efes games for free. Some sponsorship deals also include a specific amount of free tickets delivered for the workers of these companies.

"How many tickets were actually on sale? That can't be answered," one source said BasketNews.

That's the luxury that Efes can afford since they're in the Top 4 of EuroLeague clubs by payroll.

However, you have to consider the fact that Efes might have included these "free tickets" in sponsorship deals before the season. So basically, they could have made a profit from these tickets that were distributed for free later.

Partizan Belgrade showed the potential they could offer for the EuroLeague.

The Serbian powerhouse made slightly above €100k from the EuroCup Round of 16 game ticket sales vs. Frutti Extra Bursaspor.

More than 19k fans attended the Stark Arena. 4.5k of these fans were season ticket holders with playoff games included.

That's the minimum of the revenues Partizan expected to make by every EuroCup playoffs round. The estimated earnings could have risen to 400k until the final rounds.

Partizan made more than €1M from season ticket sales, but since the club played many games in Aleksandar Nikolic Hall, they had to limit the number of season tickets.

Teams with smaller gyms and fanbases don't make a lot of extra money. For example, AS Monaco make around €70k from sold-out game revenues.

For example, one deal for an LED board advertisement might equal an income from a sold-out game. Due to a small arena capacity, it’s more about advertising than ticket sales.

With an improved ticketing strategy, EuroLeague teams could make a case for the playoffs series replacing the Final 4.

The Final 4 remains the main (and only) profitable EuroLeague event, distributing the revenues among the clubs.

Together with the loaded calendar, these are the main reasons why the EuroLeague still prefers organizing the Final 4 for the season finale.

But with good leadership, new format ideas, a profitable ticketing system, and general European basketball calendar reconstruction, both money and fans experience-wise, the playoffs format could emerge as the best option to replace the Final 4 one day.

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