BCL Prize Money: How much will clubs earn in the 2023-24 season / News - Basketnews.com

The Basketball Champions League will again allocate a total amount of almost €5 million to its participants.

Credit: FIBA Media Credit FIBA Media

The Basketball Champions League has reached its Play-In stage.

The competition run by FIBA allocates its 32 clubs a total of almost 4,800,000 euros. The sum is broken down as follows:

1,700,000 euros for operating costs (payments of referees and television productions through the service company Perform) 3,050,000 euros is distributed to the clubs depending on their results alone

In the BCL, clubs don't receive any market pool income.

As far as how the sports pool is distributed, a significant change took place before the 2022-23 season. FIBA decided to substitute each club's bonus for advancing to the next round with a fixed sum for every win recorded at the TOP 16 and the playoffs.

Moreover, the standard €1,000,000 check granted to the winner was replaced by two smaller bonus prizes worth €300,000 for making the title game and €600,000 for winning it. The team that wins the match for third place will win 100,000 euros.

Starting from the 2022-23 campaign, each BCL participant receives €40,000 upon entry. However, in contrast to the fixed bonuses that existed until last season, the competition decided to reward clubs with €7,500 for every win in the Round of 16 and €10,000 for every playoff win.

By doing so, those clubs that can accumulate important wins on their way to the podium will accrue the most benefits.

On the other hand, those who finish the TOP 16 winless, like Turkish side Bahcesehir this season, might as well leave almost empty-handed and as if they never qualified for that stage.

Until 2022, clubs would get €40,000 as a participation fee, another €40,000 and €80,000 on aggregate if they made the Round of 16, and an additional bonus of €40,000 (120,000 in total) in case they reached the playoffs. From that point forward, their prize money was decided by every win.

Here are the awards for sporting achievements for the 2022-23 BCL season:

Rank Club Country Prize money 1. Telekom Baskets Bonn Germany €1,005,000 2. Hapoel Bank Jahav Jerusalem Israel €397,500 3. Lenovo Tenerife Spain €197,500 4. Unicaja Malaga Spain €97,500 5. SIG Strasbourg France €80,000 6. AEK Athens Greece €80,000 7. BAXI Manresa Spain €72,500 8. UCAM Murcia Spain €70,000 9. Rytas Vilnius Lithuania €62,500 10. JDA Bourgogne Dijon France €55,000 11. Darussafaka Lassa Turkey €55,000 12. Galatasaray Turkey €55,000 13. Hapoel Holon Israel €47,500 14. Surne Bilbao Spain €47,500 15. Limoges CSP France €47,500 16. Bahcesehir College Turkey €40,000 17. SL Benfica Portugal €40,000 18. PAOK Mateco Greece €40,000 19. MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg Germany €40,000 20. Peristeri Greece €40,000 21. Filou Oostende Belgium €40,000 22. Pinar Karsiyaka Turkey €40,000 23. Tofas Bursa Turkey €40,000 24. Igokea Bosnia & Herzegovina €40,000 25. Dinamo Sassari Italy €40,000 26. ERA Nymburk Czech Republic €40,000 27. Falco Szombathely Hungary €40,000 28. Reggio Emilia Italy €40,000 29. Bnei Herzliya Israel €40,000 30. Bakken Bears Denmark €40,000 31. VEF Riga Latvia €40,000 32. Legia Warszawa Poland €40,000

There are several observations to be made here:

While BCL CEO Patrick Comninos emphasized that clubs would still receive €3,5 million in prize money last season, the count added up to a total of€3,050,000, which is almost half a million less than usual. Telekom Baskets Bonn not only topped the list but also cashed out their historic run with a whooping €1,005,000, which makes them the wealthiest BCL winner in the competition's history. In contrast to the German league finalists, Final Four hosts Unicaja Malaga increased their revenue by only€97,500. That's the lowest input for any4th-placed team in BCL history since the previous prize was€140,000. There was a huge disparity between the winning team's reward and the amounts allocated to the rest. Bonn made€10,000more than the other TOP 8 clubs combined and at least 10 times more than Unicaja, whom they beat in the semis. Moreover, Bonn received more than one-third (34.4%) of the total sports pool, a percentage rarely seen in any major international club competition. While themaximum amount a team can get from the BCL now exceeds one million, it's also true that 15 out of the TOP 16 clubs earned less compared to any other season. "Those who are in the Final Four should be the best rewarded," Comninos insisted. "When you play a European competition, and you win, that must have a major impact on your budget."

Another interesting financial figure is the sanction that the FIBA ​​will impose on the winner, if they choose to leave for another competition. FIBA ​​does a lot to keep big clubs, especially after Virtus Bologna, the winner of the competition in 2019, defected to the EuroCup the following season.

Hence, a special clause in the regulations was included, which imposes a high financial fine - which, according to estimates of Tomer Givati from Israel Hayom, amounts to 250,000 euros - on those who renounce on the BCL.

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