English translation:
The Euroleague is experiencing a contradiction that is increasingly difficult to hide: its fans demand a competition faithful to their European roots, but its clubs need money that the current model does not generate. The dispute over Abu Dhabi, Dubai or an eventual NBA Europe is not, at its core, a sporting discussion: it is a discussion about who bears the cost of supporting elite European basketball.
The decision to bring the 2025 Final Four to Abu Dhabi opened an identity wound. The Euroleague presented the movement as a “historic expansion into new global markets”, but for thousands of followers from Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Spain and Lithuania it meant moving the great celebration of European basketball to a market without competitive teams and with a prohibitive travel cost.
Abu Dhabi would have paid around 25 million dollars to organize that Final Four, the highest fee ever paid for hosting the Euroleague outcome. It is not a minor figure: it is exactly the type of money that the competition needs to finance its growth. But it is also the symbol of an uncomfortable pact: capital of the Gulf in exchange for moving the event that concentrates the emotional identity of the league out of Europe.
The unrest was not just a reaction from social networks. Only about 10% of weekend attendees were Abu Dhabi residents; the majority were fans who traveled from Europe, with the consequent costs of flights, hotels and tickets. The criticism was direct: the Euroleague prioritized immediate entry over accessibility, atmosphere and the roots of its traditional bases.
And the story does not end there: Abu Dhabi will once again organize the Final Four in 2027 and 2029, after having also hosted the first Euroleague Basketball Super Cup in September 2026. The Euroleague has turned the Middle East into a pillar of its commercial strategy, not a specific exception.
Here is the point that many fans prefer to avoid: the Euroleague, as it is built, does not seem like a machine capable of supporting itself. It is a competition of enormous sporting prestige, but with a fragile economy. Economist Iván Cabeza, consulted by Reuters, summed it up without anesthesia: it is very difficult for him to see how a business like the Euroleague, “which has been, is and most likely will continue to be a company that loses money”, can experience a radical change. It is not an isolated opinion of a detractor: it is the diagnosis of someone who analyzes the economic structure of the competition.
The tests are in the very clubs that embody the European elite. Real Madrid, Panathinaikos, Olimpiacos and FC Barcelona have accumulated net losses each season for several years. If the most powerful clubs, with the largest brands, audiences and commercial capacity on the continent, fail to close the equation, the problem is not one of specific management: it is structural.
The Euroleague has responded with a ten-year plan that promises to distribute 3.4 billion euros to participating clubs, of which 2.2 billion would come from commercial income and 1.2 billion from franchise fees. The stated objective is to reach 648 million euros of annual commercial income in the tenth year and triple the added value of the competition and its clubs.
But there is an uncomfortable fact within this optimistic story: the NBA leader himself, Mark Tatum, stated that only around 40% of the Euroleague shareholder clubs are considered financially sustainable. And the NBA plans to invest $3 billion in the launch of NBA Europe precisely to cover initial shortfalls and prevent teams from having to provide additional capital during the startup phase. That reveals something essential: even the most ambitious and best-capitalized project recognizes that elite European basketball needs a massive initial injection to work.
The Euroleague has passionate audiences, full stadiums and a competitive intensity that the NBA cannot replicate. But passion does not pay payroll, travel, insurance, arbitrations, audiovisual production, international marketing and the increasingly expensive templates required to compete at the highest level. The problem is not that the Euroleague invoices little in absolute terms; is that their income does not grow at the rate of their costs. The competition's own plan implicitly admits this lack: it needs a decade, new franchises, new markets and 3.4 billion euros of distributions to try to achieve sustainability. A healthy company does not need to completely redesign its economic model to stop losing money.
Furthermore, the expansion poses a paradox. The Euroleague wants to grow by adding teams and markets, but Tatum questioned how this expansion can be sustained when a relevant part of the current clubs is no longer financially stable. Adding places does not magically create value: if the cake does not grow enough, it only distributes the same insufficiency among more participants.
For the Euroleague, the Middle East offers something that traditional Europe is not providing quickly enough: capital willing to pay to partner with the product. Abu Dhabi has already demonstrated its readiness with the 2025 Final Four and has renewed its commitment to the 2027 and 2029 editions. Dubai, for its part, has a direct competitive presence through Dubai Basketball, and the Dubai TV network reached a cumulative television audience of 19.57 million viewers in the Middle East and North Africa region during the 2025-26 season. That explains why the Euroleague insists: it is not a whim, it is a search for income, audience and global projection.
The problem is that this money comes with a cultural price. The Final Four stops being the natural meeting point for European fans and becomes a hosted global event where someone pays more to organize it. Critics saw it as prioritizing financial benefits over fan involvement; The remoteness, cost and absence of competition teams in the area fuel the perception of uprooting.
Abu Dhabi has its right to invest in sport but the reality of this exchange must be recognized: the Euroleague receives liquidity and expansion; European fans receive less proximity, less identity and the feeling that their competition is designed first for investors and external markets.
Purists also reject NBA Europe, and understand why. They fear a closed league, more commercial, more American in its logic and less connected to sporting advancement, local fans and the tradition of European competitions. But rejecting it just for identity, without offering an economic alternative, is like refusing to pay the mortgage because we don't like the bank. The NBA has proposed that Euroleague clubs can join NBA Europe through an entry fee of about $447 million, a figure presumably lowered from the initial range of $500 million to $1 billion. He would also have offered close to $581 million to buy the Euroleague, according to sources cited by Sports Business Journal. The Euroleague rejected the first merger proposal on October 6, 2026,although it left the door open for future conversations. Meanwhile, the NBA maintains its plan to launch a 16-team European league in fall 2027, with or without the Euroleague.
The NBA's promise is clear: distributions much higher than the 3.4 billion euros planned by the Euroleague in ten years, average profitability of permanent teams in the third year and an initial investment of 3 billion dollars to absorb early losses. These projections may be exaggerated, incomplete or outright unattainable. But they are a concrete economic response to a problem that the Euroleague has not yet resolved.
The European fan actually has three paths. None are free. The option to “continue as we are” is not neutral. If clubs continue to lose money, sooner or later they will reduce squads, sell assets, rely more on state or business sponsors, or simply stop being competitive. Sustainability is not an accounting obsession: it is the condition to continue competing. And you have to be aware of it and consistent with the consequences. We have to be prepared to have a devalued Euroleague against the rise of other markets.
The question that no one wants to ask. Who will bell the cat? Who will explain to the stands in Athens, Belgrade, Istanbul, Madrid, Barcelona or Kaunas that nostalgia does not finance a Euroleague club? Who will say that anti-Abu Dhabi banners are legitimate, but they are not a substitute for an income plan? Who will admit that rejecting NBA Europe without building a solvent alternative is equivalent to choosing slow decline?
The Euroleague needs leadership capable of telling an uncomfortable truth: European basketball can preserve its soul only if it finds an economic body capable of sustaining it. If not with your own resources, you will have to choose between Gulf capital or American capital. And if you reject both, you'll need to explain how you plan to continue paying the bill.
Because the elephant is no longer in the room: he is sitting on the bench, with the number of losses on his back, waiting for someone to dare to look at him.
Óscar Villares
