Euroleague CEO Paulius Motiejunas gave a long and insightful interview to Sport24, touching on several key topics — including potential changes to the current format of Europe’s top basketball competition.
What are your strategic priorities right now? What is at the top of your agenda?
“Stability. I would like us to have a little stability with everything that is happening. There are wars, there are external pressures on Europe. There are many issues on the table, but we need to calm down and look to the future.”
Should we expect a change in the Euroleague format starting next season? There is talk of 24 teams, regional groups… Is that realistic?
“Yes. It remains on the agenda, and it’s part of the plan. We believe it’s the next step — ideally reaching 24 teams. If that’s not possible, it could be 22, split into two groups, maybe with an additional mid-season tournament or an All-Star Game. We want to make the schedule a bit less compressed and maybe add some new elements to the competition. Everything is still under discussion.”
Are there any teams you can anticipate as potential new entrants for next season?
“Look, we must remember we have the EuroCup, a competition where teams can perform well and earn promotion. Not every club has the goal of becoming an Euroleague team. Many focus on developing young players and supporting the Euroleague system through that. We’ll see. Our first reference point is always our second competition.”
You recently said that ‘the only way is together’ in reference to NBA Europe. What would be the ideal partnership from Euroleague’s perspective?
“It’s hard for me to say what the ideal partnership would be. I’ll understand that if and when we actually sit together and ask, ‘OK, how do we grow basketball?’ But we’re not at that stage yet. So saying ‘let’s sit down and talk to grow the game’ and then reading certain interviews… you can see we’re still too far apart.”
How can that distance be reduced?
“It’s a matter of approach. If you look at Mark Tatum’s latest interview, where he says, ‘we want to dominate this market’… Listen, we are in Europe. We don’t want to be dominated. We want cooperation — that’s the mindset. If someone arrives saying ‘we want to dominate’… well, even the Greek Sports Minister clearly said, ‘we don’t want that.’
“We have our own culture, our own kids going to the NCAA, and we have the NBA wanting to come here, dominate, and take the best players — like Giannis — back to America. We don’t want that.
“If this is understood, then we can sit down and talk. If not, I’m sorry — we will continue on our path, trying to maximize what we are doing instead of waiting for someone to come and say ‘save us’ or ‘help us’ and so on.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhD3kqgqqLk
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