Teams that played in all the Basketball Champions League editions
Teams that played in all the Basketball Champions League editions
Even if it’s still a young competition in Europe, BasketballCL made already history and is looking forward to a promising future. Every year, at the start of the regular season there are 32 participants involved in the battle for the trophy. Let’s see now which teams had the most constant appearances in all the editions of the BasketballCL, including the next one that will start on 15 October.
If Ventspils will pass to the group stage from the qualifying round there will be a total of 10 teams that were present in all 4 editions of the BasketballCL. Till now the other 9 clubs are readily confirmed for the 4th consecutive season in this competition. It’s about Iberostar Tenerife, AEK Athens, Banvit, PAOK, SIG Strasbourg, Besiktas, CEZ Nymburk, Neptunas and Oostende.
Three other teams could have kept this record if they would have participated this year too. These clubs were involved in all 3 seasons of the BasketballCL but Umana Venezia decided to join Eurocup, Ludwigsburg will have a break this year and Scandone Avellino disappeared from the basketball scene due to financial problems.
These are the most constant European teams that have participated in all the BasketballCL regular seasons. Till now, before the 4th edition, a total of 51 clubs from 22 national basketball associations have played in or qualified for the Champions League group stage.
BasketballCL is considered by many the most democratic European competition giving access to almost any team to participate or at least to fight in the qualifiers. It’s a dynamic competition that comes every year with new challenges, with fresh teams who are joining maybe for their first time, like Manresa, Zaragoza, Gaziantep, Turk Telekom and so on. But, on the other side, Basketball Champions League is still keeping a constant core of clubs that guarantee the level will be high no matter what.
Photo credit: championsleague.basketball
Gratian Cormos
Teams that played in all the Basketball Champions League editions
