The Euroleague's response to the NBA Europe plans

0:03Hello, and welcome to another episode of It's Leaders Worth Knowing. It's the Sports Business podcast from us folks here at Leaders in Sport. For you folks listening, you all, Leaders in Sport, my name is James Emmett. I'm the editorial director here at Leaders and with me as ever is my great good colleague, David Cushnan. David, how are you? I'm very well, thank you, James. But hang on, there's somebody else here. Yes. And my other great good colleague, Henry Breckenridge. Henry, how are you? James, David, very well, thank you. Happy to be joining you in the Leaders studio. I thought you were going to say happy Christmas.

0:38Not quite, Henry. Although on the interview that we've got today, there is an unusually large segment on Christmas. So one to look out for. In the recent spirit of these podcasts, we've been teeing up what's coming up early on. Yes. Dot, dot, dot. Dot, dot, dot. Who you got? Well, on today's episode, we are going to hear a conversation that I had just today, Tuesday, with Paulius Mottieunas, the CEO of EuroLeague, the continental premier basketball competition. And a fascinating bloke, unusual route to the top. he's a lithuanian and he started in the comms department at zalgaris kaunas the lithuanian team in euroleague and he sort of worked his way up to become chief executive in 2023 lots of interesting stuff going on at euroleague at the moment not least sort of what's going on what's happening to it almost in the emergence of plans being cooked up by the NBA, apparently in consultation with their brothers across the basketball political spectrum to launch a new league, NBA Europe.

2:09Yes, NBA Europe, this bold plan by the NBA to continue to internationalise and to ultimately commercialise that internationalisation. and we're starting to see the pieces move into place in terms of what this could be, how this might look. Seems to be pretty much on record now that they're looking at 2027 as the launch for this. So they've got a job on to get it all together. They have had Adam Silver set out the vision for this, Mark Tatum, the deputy CEO, deputy commissioner at the NBA, George Iversoglu running EMEA for the NBA very much doing the rounds rain group JP Morgan both on board as advisors here and just in recent days I think in the Italian press some suggestions the first sort of proper suggestion of the locations of the teams that they're looking for they're looking to either create or have as part of this league.

3:15So it could be a combination of entirely new entities and some teams potentially brought across from Euroleague. The cities they're looking at in Italy, Milan and Rome, in the UK, London and Manchester, in France, Paris and Lyon, in Spain, Madrid and Barcelona, in Germany, Berlin and Munich, then one from Athens, one from Istanbul and those teams, those core franchises would be supplemented by the Basketball Champions League winner each year and then three others from selected domestic leagues. So you start to see how this might work and how this might work in relation to certainly the Basketball Champions League, which is the rival to the EuroLeague that was created in 2016.

4:04That was the point at which EuroLeague did its big deal and joint venture with IMG, which has just been extended to, I think, 2035, 2036, around media distribution, commercialisation of EuroLeague. Meantime Basketball Champions League, backed by FIBA, World Basketball's governing body, who are now, we hear, working with the NBA to develop and build out NBA Europe. Well, what we hear is everybody's working with the NBA to develop and build out collaborative plans. And you really should stay tuned to hear what Paulius says about that collaboration. I'm looking forward to hearing what he says. Just on the point around the NBA folk doing the rounds with Rain Group and JP Morgan.

4:55Silver, Ivor, Tater. They've been talking to everybody. They've been talking to everybody in Europe. And I think there are some key questions coming out of that as they start to flesh out these plans and particularly the makeup of the league and the teams involved. Can they convince existing EuroLeague teams to move across? And their suggestions are that they are looking for franchise fees of between 500 million and a billion dollars. Worth saying that EuroLeague teams in general are reported to generate around 100 million dollars in revenue across the season. So there's an existing teams bit.

5:34Can they work with investors, with teams in other sports, i.e. football, to create new teams? Can the NBA convince, for example, a city football group to launch a pro basketball team in Manchester? Could they convince Qatar Sports Investments to launch one in Paris, for example? Definitely those kind of conversations are happening. And can they be the ones, the NBA, to fix basketball in the UK, which is in a complete sort of governance thug at the moment? it's worth noting that London Lions just this week have announced the sort of next stage of their plan to have a 15 ,000 seater new arena new basketball dedicated arena somewhere in London precise location not yet known and London Lions which has sort of risen from the ashes of its previous incarnation under 777 now has a shared ownership with the aforementioned Zalgiris Kaunas Euroleague team, Lithuanian ownership.

6:40So they're a player in this as well, potentially in terms of that probably quite critical London franchise that I would imagine would appear on lots of the proposal decks around investors. It is also worth saying that another dynamic in this, so the NBA doing the rounds with potential investors, cities, apparently in collaboration with FIBA and EuroLeague. At the same time, there is the spectre of Maverick Carter, LeBron James's longtime business partner, starting up his own endeavour with backing potentially from other financial entities, but also a lot of rumours suggest that Saudi money could be unlocked for that endeavour as well.

7:29And that appears to be, from the outside at least, what is driving urgency at the NBA to get something done here. Yes, there's a lot to pick through here. It's, as we will hear, I would imagine, already quite a complex ecosystem in basketball in Europe and the NBA coming in. And the way they're trying to do it, seemingly trying to come in almost over the top of it as the premium product, which is where the NBA would see itself, is, as we said right at the start, certainly bold. It is bold and potentially problematic, as we may hear later. Anyway, now we'll do the bit that we usually do at the beginning.

8:08So that's what's coming up? Yeah, that's what's coming up. What's happening now? A little bit of waffle? Do we do a little bit of... No, no, no, no. We just chew the cud on what's going on in the sports industry. Now, you mentioned that we've got somebody else in the studio, and that's Henry. Henry's here. Yeah, Henry's here. We actually sent Henry on a little jaunt the other day. David, because I know that you would have loved to have done this. I would. So Formula One and Lenovo, was it Henry? Correct. Yes. Invited us to go along and view the inner workings of some sort of broadcast lair that they have set up in a private airport just outside of London.

8:47Henry, dot, dot, dot, tell us more. Indeed they did. DC, before I get on to that, have you been before? I've not been, but F1 has long had a base at Biggin Hill. It was Bernie Ecclestone's lair. So Bernie Ecclestone, was this part of the tour, Henry? Because Bernie Ecclestone is a qualified pilot. Was, I think. Do you ever lose your... Yeah, you probably do. Well, he's 95 years old. I wouldn't trust him behind the controls of a plane now, but he certainly used to fly his own private flights in and out of Biggin Hill. And there was all sorts of rumours which go along with that. they didn't yes good point we should stop over to you henry yes they didn't touch on that on the day but um fascinating tidbit there um yes you're right big in hill once an raf base now their key broadcasting hub so essentially well this was this was news to me because i'm a bit of a novice f1 fan unlike the man on my left so it was um an illuminating and eye-opening day to say the least but essentially for those of you who may not know f1 has a state-of-the-art production and tech facility within Biggin Hill.

9:56It's the MNTC, which is short, James, for the Media and Tech Centre. And essentially, F1 is a split operation. So they've got the event technical centre at the track. And that's all about acquisition, getting pictures, getting audio, getting data, 600 terabytes to be specific across the 24 race circuits. And then it's sent back to big in hill the mncc to produce the world feed right and that goes to 180 uh different territories to appear on our living room screens when we're watching the various races um very impressive facility sensory overload screens buttons galore microphones the whole shebang bit like our studio yes was something was something going on when you were there were they yes so um round well roundtable discussions talk about the partnership between lenovo and F1 and how they're working together to bring F1 to all those people that I mentioned, all those different territories.

10:56And then it was a showcase of all the different rooms and all the different tech. But you didn't see it in action. There was no race on at the time. No race on at the time, but we did get the chance to speak to various members of staff there and they told us about what they did. So for example, we had a little whiz around the team radio room and we spoke to members of staff there and one of their roles on race day is to monitor the driver conversations. No swearing, et cetera. No swearing. Well, not just swearing at the moment because there's a bit of a story in F1 at the moment that Fernando Alonso is apparently repeatedly having to be muted by the F1 TV folk for sort of being openly critical either of messages that he believes are being transmitted wrongly on the broadcast or not hearing from him conversely.

11:46So he's having a little bit of a, he's waging a little bit of a war against. He's in the middle of the race, critiquing the broadcast of the race. He's got so much spare capacity. At that point, he's really good. That point did actually come up within the round table and the member of staff there said, it's completely baffling that during the race and when he's going at that speed, he's got the note, like the i guess capacity to comment on the broadcast when i'll see your concentration about how he's he's and his race is being portrayed on the broadcast using the only mechanism he's got to affect it which is the the team radio one point that did come up during the roundtables which is sort of closely um related to that was about whether ai would come into team radio transcripts so whether those would be displayed through ai eventually and f1 did say that they were looking at that closely but to the point that you just made there david around um fernando alonso you know background noise strong accents maybe you know potentially the wrong things being said that uh f1 don't want to go on the coverage and a level of editorial decision making that's got to come into it it's something that you know they're monitoring but potentially not you know gonna enact anytime soon but it's interesting to see where ai is going to come into it um and then as sort of mentioned um lenovo obviously a global partner of f1 now i think they are um at the top tier having been a previously a tech partner um and yeah fascinating day kind of illuminating in so many different ways and for me personally just great to see a peek behind the curtain of how the sport comes to life when i'm you know not not a massive super fan We actually had Lara Rodini, Lenovo's sponsorship director, on the podcast at the beginning of the year, I think, when we were from the F1 partner day.

13:48It is interesting. I feel like Formula One are ahead of the game in some respects with their broadcast. They've always had a fairly sophisticated, joined up central approach to how they put together their broadcast, which makes it more straightforward to sell, I suppose, and keep control of what the product is. But we are finding more and more that Formula One sponsors are carving out real bits of utility that they have with the series. And a lot of sort of Formula One sponsorship activation, I'm noticing now anyway, is in sponsors explaining how they help Formula One. Yeah, definitely. AWS would be another big example of that.

14:34They've got a lot of graphics within the broadcast. Recently announced partner of DP World Tour, AWS. Yes, indeed. Indeed. Yeah, it's a highly sophisticated broadcast product. And as you say, James, I think it always has been. But I think really you can see the additional investment that is being put into it and the fact that they have behind the scenes, as a lot of sports organisations have done, put a lot of investment in remote production, remote production techniques. And I know Sky Sports, for example, who broadcast F1 in the UK, they have a big remote operation as well. So they are limiting the number of people on the ground at what is a very gruelling 24 race calendar, which starts at the beginning of March and will continue into December.

15:26It's a lot of travel, a lot of expense and reducing that utilising technology is something that is definitely being done. And as you say, it really lends itself to a sport like F1 where the tech story is, yes, it's one story of many, but it's definitely an important story and one that does feel right. Do they explain what happens when things go dark or things go wrong, Henry? They did, but they also said on the other side of the coin that they have a zero tolerance for mistakes. So they said that they, I mean, as you'd expect, they test a lot. They test a lot. And you know, when it comes to crunch time at the weekend, you know, understandably there can't be any slip ups when they're attempting to deliver the coverage and power everything.

16:13So they did say when challenged on, I think this was a bit more of a broadcast sort of editorial decision-making one. And I wouldn't classify this as a mistake, but I think depending on who you are, it's definitely a preferential thing. One of the questions that came up was about the coverage and what specific battle the world feed is showing at that time. So I think in a recent race, and David, you might know the one I'm talking about here. Let's see if I can guess. It was, there was a fascinating battle, I think, between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, but Lando Norris was on screen for the majority of that period.

16:57And to certain viewers, they wanted to see the battle between Hamilton and Alonso. but for um the reason why norris was being shown was because he was the the person that was likely going to win the race and they all essentially the the guys wanted to show the the winning moment happening um be curious to get your take on that david yeah it was the singapore grand prix and they were um it was the very end of the race so the the presumably the choice was do you broadcast the really fun entertaining battle that's happening on the last lap further back or do you show the winner crossing the line, which you kind of have to show.

17:35They're definitely doing some of this picture-in-picture stuff. I think one thing that is definitely noticeable in this social media age, this sort of real-time feedback, we talk about it anytime we talk about Formula One, the new generation of Drive to Survive fans, there's definitely a lot more, and you know, I'm right in the F1 algorithm, definitely a lot more fan critique of the broadcast coverage than ever, real time so you are getting probably some more criticism of uh what f1 is doing but it's a very complicated broadcast you know in general it's a complicated thing to cover 20 moving objects you know which could be doing anything at any point um because that used to be your stock in trade dave what's that sort of directing live critique of where the coverage is getting it wrong during a race.

18:26And also right, I think. But I think in general, F1 do a pretty fine job and they're never going to get every single thing right. The beauty is they've got so many additional camera angles and everybody can watch everything on demand now. F1's social digital channels, as we know, have exploded over the last sort of five, six years. So you are seeing pretty much everything and the bits that you're not seeing on the live broadcast, you're definitely being fed in the days after, whether that's additional team radio, additional angles, onboard coverage, camera angles where they can't broadcast it live, the sort of 360 cameras, but when they take it off the cars and download it, they can feed that out as well.

19:06So there's plenty there for everybody. Does everything go through the same radio system or are they allowed a channel that's not broadcast or that doesn't even get fed through to the broadcast? I think most things are broadcast, are available to be heard if you're following the right feed. Right. The director will choose which stuff makes it into the main broadcast. Well, thanks for that, Henry. Thank you for that new segment, Henry Breckenridge Investigates. No worries. Thanks for passing the invitation on to me. Well, we must do it again. Right. That didn't sound very genuine. Let me clarify.

19:40We must do it again. Thank you very much, David. We must have you on the podcast again. We will never pass an invitation on to you again, just to clarify. Just be here. All right. Shall we hear from our guest today, the CEO of the EuroLeague? It's Paulius Mottier-Junas. Okay, as trailed, delighted to welcome, and I'm not going to mangle his name again, but it's Paul joining us from the EuroLeague offices in Barcelona. Paul, how are you doing? Doing great. How are you? Very good. Thank you. Very good. Thanks for making the time to be with us in what seems like an incredibly busy period, not just for EuroLeague, but for basketball and basketball in Europe in general.

20:27But Paul, set the scene for us, will you? What's on your plate right now? What are the key issues that you're facing today? We have a busy season ahead of us and we're starting with another double week today. So interesting, busy, regular, let's say, November. Is it November? Yeah, it's November. It is just about November. Yeah. So that's how we live from game day to game day. From game day to game day. And what about your role as the CEO? Obviously, you're not, I presume, involved in the nuts and bolts of event delivery. what type of issues are in your sort of to-do list at the moment what's what's keeping you up at night it's it's not a rocket science business you know you you run you run the league and your league is as strong as the clubs that are playing with you and i'm happy to have the best teams in europe playing in our league so it makes makes our work quite easy and we just need to catch up and but But basically, I run the office here in Barcelona.

21:40We have around 100 people, and we are here to get the best numbers for the teams, follow the lead, and improve the basketball in Europe. One of the number one issues facing basketball at the moment, or certainly a lot of the media attention around basketball in Europe is being taken up with rumours, the odd comment here and there about this new basketball league being putatively set up by the NBA, NBA Europe. Just yesterday, George Iverzoglu made some comments yesterday we're speaking, or what day is it? I mean, you don't know what month it is. I don't know what day it is. What are we? Tuesday.

22:31just yesterday George Iversoglu at NBA EMEA made some comments about a potential start date for this new NBA Europe what's from your perspective what's the current state of play with discussions around this new tournament I would say not not as deep and not as far as as we wish it would be. I explained to the majority of the people, we had meetings with the MBA even during the COVID times or pre-COVID times. So that's how long back we started this discussion and conversations. And we hear this exploration phase. And now, like you said yourself, we see these bits and pieces. But I miss clear information.

23:21now they opened up with the teams not even with the teams with the cities where the teams would be so there's more questions for me after all these press releases and after all these things that are being mentioned rather than answers and we are still, I wouldn't say we are already talking facing the same direction so this is what I'm missing we're not talking about basketball but we see different ways. And what's your, I mean, you mentioned having discussions with the NBA as far back as COVID. How would you characterize your involvement in those discussions? Clearly from what you've just said now, you may be not in them.

24:07But would you, do you sort of see this project as a sort of competition or collaboration? It depends. It really depends on both sides. The way it started, it started like a possibility to collaborate. And the main focus is European basketball. And we need to be very careful not to harm European basketball, but to make it grow. Because we need to protect the sport. We need to protect the clubs. We need to protect the fans. And I keep repeating that we don't need a new league. We have been running the best league in Europe for 26 years. We have the best shareholders. We have really great numbers, both looking at the full picture.

24:54The teams are growing. The spectators in the arenas are growing. The sponsorship is growing. The final four is going to new markets and delivering 10 out of 10 product. You know, so there's so many things that we can be sharing the information with the NBA and thinking how we make this status quo become even better and basketball become even a better sport. But right now the approach is, you know, to start a new league with new markets and with a completely different approach. I would say the main difference is that we are following the fans, we are following the game, the passion, and the product on the court is the best in the world.

25:42So we are building business around the basketball that we have. And the NBA approach, from what we see and what we hear with this new league going to the biggest markets, they have the business side and they want to attach basketball to that. So I think that's where we have the two main separation between us. And I'm really afraid that we will harm the basketball in Europe if we don't start seeing eye to eye. And from your perspective, what needs to happen in order to start seeing more eye to eye? I mean, just the latest report, as I mentioned, George Iverzoglu at NBA Europe talking at a conference in Italy, I think, yesterday.

26:28yesterday he was sort of outlining the idea of soft starting in 2027 with 16 teams 12 of them sort of permanent franchises as far as i can make out from the comments and previous comments the idea is to have at least some of those teams as the current euro league teams sort of signed up to join this new endeavor. There's some monetary amounts floating around as well. A couple of months ago, it was reported that the NBA is looking for around about$500 million as a franchise fee. And there were definitely some EuroLeague team owners who were corroborating, maybe slightly laughing at that potential number.

27:17I mean, how do you get back on track in terms of making this more collaborative? And, well, yeah, let's start with that, and then we'll move to potential ramifications. It's really difficult for me to comment because you know it takes two to tango. So we, and we are three, because we have FIBA who is trying to put us both at the same table and have successfully done that. But we need to know what both sides can help basketball. I keep repeating the same. We need to protect the basketball. And if we sit down, there's so many things that we can help each other with. You know, we definitely appreciate the way that NBA is running the business in the U.S.

27:57and how amazing they grow the product, whether it's the TV contract that they sign. And there's many, many things. But we need to understand it's Europe. And we have this know-how that we can sit down and share. And then figure out, you know, how we make the pie of basketball bigger. and if that is the focus, then it's easy to open up the doors, map everything out and find a solution. So it's not rocket science, I say it again. And it's just a matter of goodwill and listening to each other. It does sound to me like you're maybe fundamentally opposed to what the current plan seems to be and I appreciate that the current plan is vague.

28:41But this idea of a new league in Europe, you've stated that you don't believe that that is necessary? We already have four. And if we want more people following basketball, I'm always trying to be in their shoes. So you switch on the TV and you see basketball and you have no idea what kind of level it is. And you may think that this is a top competition, but it can actually be a third or a fourth layer of the competition. And you say, okay, this is not that much interesting. So you switch off and you go to watch a movie, you go to watch another sport, And that's not helping. So they have said it numerous times.

29:20We have been working on the same assumption that we want a clear pyramid so that everybody would understand everything. But this league number five doesn't close the pyramid and make it easy to understand for everyone. Yeah. And potentially it's not just league number five, right? The suggestion is that the NBA is under some pressure to move forward with whatever their plan is, because there's potentially league number six as well with this Maverick Carter endeavor. Another league being set up by LeBron James' business partner with funding from who knows where. Now it's plan B already. It's called plan B now.

30:03it's called plan b right but i understand that that's what's your do you know do you have much detail on that oh it's it's also the detail that we all read in the paper it's it's it's people trying this i think this is the good part and the bad part is that there's a lot of financial investments and and many investment funds who want to put money into basketball and and i repeat we need to be careful because there's good examples and there's bad examples in sport where that money coming in can destroy the competition, making it too much commercial, making too much money driven versus there really are options where, and there've been examples where the investment comes in and money used well puts the sport in completely different tier and helps the clubs, the fans and so on and so forth.

30:53So we have to be careful not to do the mistakes that some sports have made. And now I think that's why you have all these leagues and everybody. And it's not only in basketball. It's the same in football with the Kings League, I think. And, you know, live golf and we can go on and on. And this is the reality in which we have to live. If things do carry on the way they seem to be going with the two sides growing further and further apart, what are the potential ramifications for basketball in Europe? What would your message be, not just to the folks at the NBA who you want more collaboration with, but to the stakeholders that you have in the EuroLeague?

31:32You know, a lot of the major team owners will obviously be talking to the NBA as well. What happens if the plan that they currently have to start a new league, much more expensive base, different plans entirely, what happens to basketball in Europe then? I can tell you about EuroLeague. I know that we've been growing. What happens to the EuroLeague, yeah. No, we are not looking through our shoulder to see what the others will do. We focus on ourselves, delivering better numbers. We continue to do so. And we really see a potential to grow the league. We want to grow the league to more teams than we have right now.

32:12We can change the calendar and a little bit the structure because now we have round-robin. If we go, we go to conferences. So there's a plan in place that we have, and we will continue to protect the fan and the product on the court that we have. So this for us doesn't change. And when you talk about the clubs that are part of the league, they know what we've been doing. You mentioned yourself, the public explanation that we hear, there's more questions than answers so far. And we've been clear with the numbers. We've been clear with the plan. the teams are the owners so far 13 maybe even more coming you know so this is this is how we will have to adjust but we don't want to uh change the approach that like i i said to you already we're going to focus on basketball and basketball fans and put business around it rather than completely changing the approach and and and following the money solely so probably fair to say that you haven't seen or spoken to Adam Silver or Mark Tatum recently?

33:20It's fair to say yes. Yeah well let's dig into some of these numbers that you've mentioned the numbers are good the state of the league is healthy you've been in the role now for two and a half years as CEO obviously you've been in and around the EuroLeague and EuroLeague teams for a lot longer than that but since taking over as CEO in 2023 how do you think you've done Paul what are you proud of the proudest thing for me is is the final four in Abu Dhabi as as any CEO you have to have a team around you to help you get good results and and achieve good results so I'm happy that we have a couple guys come in who had the courage to change the way we we do the business approach the sponsorship approach and it helped us grow significantly you know going away from the naming sponsor to just having major partners and and cleaning the logo and having euroleague back as a single euroleague for the first time after 15 years so there are some small things that now it seems normal now it seems normal to to get this progress but i'm more looking ahead in the future I think there's much more things that we can do.