Basketball Champions League Launched

Paris, France – With over 200 guests in attendance, FIBA officially launched the Basketball Champions League at the Maison du Sport. The league’s inaugural season will tip off this 2016-17 and begin on September 27th  2016. 32 teams will participate in the regular season. 24 teams will qualify directly, while eight other teams will advance from qualifying rounds.

The qualifying rounds will run from September 27 to October 6, 2016. The regular season will be played out from October 20th 2016 to April 30th, 2017.

The 32 participating teams will be broken down into four groups of eight teams each. The Playoffs will be composed of 16 teams, which will then be cut to four teams for the Final Four.

Teams that receive direct qualification will receive it based on their domestic national leagues. As of now the following countries will receive direct qualification for the regular season: Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, and Turkey.

This is a big project by FIBA and FIBA Europe. A guaranteed €4.5 million will be up for grabs with the overall champion of the competition taking home around €500,000.