Money and standings in the Euroleague
Recently Basket-Mag.com published the budgets of the Euroleague teams for this season. In this article, I will make a comparison between the budget ranking and the standings in the European competition.
Real Madrid
The reigning champions had the highest budget also this year – €42 million with €31 million spent on salaries. They are on the second spot of the Euroleague after 17 rounds.
But not many people realized that Real Madrid paid more for the salaries than Baskonia, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos together!
F.C. Barcelona
Has the second budget and much bigger salaries (€27 million) than CSKA of Fenerbahce, each with €18 million. Barca started to have some results in the Euroleague this season, but they have to keep fighting for a better position. With this money, missing the Final 4 would be bad management.
The middle-class of the Euroleague
In this section are included teams that offer salaries between 14-9 million. Armani Milano, for instance, has 25 million budget but they’ve spent just 12 million on salaries the same amount as Anadolu Efes who has just 18 million the whole budget, meanwhile, Khimki has a total of 24 million (14 million for salaries).
All these teams are fighting for a playoff spot together with the Greek teams, Bayern, Maccabi and Baskonia. The most intriguing fact is that Olympiacos and Panathinaikos had just 10 million for the salaries but they are now a playoff spot. Last year, these two teams finished on 3rd and 4th the regular season. Big performance with a medium budget – this is real performance!
Zalgiris
The Lithuanian team has the biggest budget (7.4 million for salaries) from their recent history but even like this, they cannot compete with the rich teams. Even Khimki has 14 million for the salaries. Zalgiris had a huge performance last year, winning the 3rd spot in the Final 4, but actually they don’t have any chance to repeat that.
The poor teams
Sharing the last spots on both categories seems to be fair: Gran Canaria, Dacka and Buducnost have any chance for the trophy but they had some good games so far this season.
Source of photo: Basket-Mag.com
Gratian Cormos, info@brainbasketball.net
