Basketball Champions League

Basketball Champions League is the top club basketball competition organised by FIBA since 2016. While it’s still considered inferior to EuroLeague and EuroCup (organized by Euroleague Basketball), Basketball Champions League grows in popularity every year.

After years of organizing weaker competitions such as FIBA Europe Cup or Eurochallenge, FIBA decided to create Basketball Champions League as a strong alternative to EuroCup and to even challenge EuroLeague as the strongest league in Europe. However, so far the financial power of BCL is far from EuroLeague. Another reasoning from FIBA was that EuroLeague and EuroCup are closed leagues and Basketball Champions League would be the competition where teams qualify based on the results they reach in their domestic leagues.

The first season of the Basketball Champions League was held in 2016-2017.  The teams that won Basketball Champions League so far are Iberostar Tenerife in 2017 and AEK Athens in 2018. As an interesting fact, both teams won the trophy on their home court, being the hosts of the Final 4 tournament.

This season there are 32 teams in the competition, divided into 4 groups of 8 teams. The top four teams from each group advance to the playoffs. After the round 16 and quarterfinal, the top 4 teams advance to the Final 4 tournament, which is organized by one of the qualified teams.