VTB United League honorary president Sergey Ivanov spoke with the media following the League Board meeting in Moscow.
On TV: I want to thank our partners at Match TV. The quantity of basketball broadcasts in recent years has multiplied several times. And the quality of the broadcasts has improved dramatically. Long-time basketball fans probably remember what basketball looked like 10 years ago. Mediocre is the only way to describe it. Now the progress is evident. Without high-quality broadcasts you can’t get the younger generation to watch on TV, go to games or even start playing the game.
On the Final Four: After very difficult and lengthy discussions, we decided to move to a Final Four format. The first round of the playoffs remains a best-of-five series. The top eight teams from the regular season will compete with the four winners going to the Final Four. Among the 20 votes–which includes VTB League shareholders, as well as the clubs–13 voted for the Final Four and four against. Three more, including the United League leadership, abstained. I can explain why. I was open about the fact that by making this decision we’re going in blind. We don’t know yet where the Final Four will be held and what kind of revenue it will bring. We’re a commercial league, after all. At the same time, we clearly lose revenue from the semifinals.We won’t get a series like Khimki – Zenit any more. Perhaps, it could happen, if the League decides to return to the prior format, but I’m not a fan of that type of waffling. One more reason we abstained was that the League exists for the clubs. We need to do what the clubs want. We simply submitted to the will of the majority. There is one definite positive: The season will finish earlier, on June 10, prior to the start of the Russia World Cup.
On CSKA’s titles: The primary motivation for going to the Final Four format is obvious. For years, Russian basketball has wondered who would knock CSKA from its throne. Obviously, the Final Four gives other teams a better chance. It’s easier to beat CSKA in a single game that in a best-of-five series.
On the quarterfinal format: We changed the format of the quarterfinal series. Now they will use a 1-2-2 format instead of a 2-2-1. There was another proposal to make it a best-of-seven series, but that would have extended the calendar and we simply cannot impinge on the World Cup.
On the Russian championship: There was a proposal to name the Russian champions based on regular season results. But it wasn’t adopted because there could be some crazy scenarios. Image a team finishing first in the regular season and being named Russian champions, then losing in the quarterfinals to the eighth-place team. Would you still call them champions? That’s ridiculous.
On helping with budgets: I don’t worry about securing and forming club budgets. That’s for them to worry about. But the League should create conditions for clubs to be interested in playing with us. Right now I’m talking about bonuses, insurance, officiating and other types of expenses. In other tournaments, the clubs pay that themselves.
On tickets: The League will have access to the clubs’ electronic ticket data for the first time. We aren’t interested in what the clubs tell us about attendance because attendance and tickets sold in Russia today are two different things. There are more spectators than tickets sold. I think everyone understands what I’m talking about.
On basketball media exposure: Let me repeat, I’m very happy about how basketball is broadcast on Match TV. I see their professional work. There are some questions for print media. It’s become quite comical, even paradoxical. Regular newspapers like Kommersant, Rossiskaya Gazeta, Izvestiya write more about basketball than Sport-Express and Sovetsky Sport. Take Sport-Express, for example. It’s got 16 pages. 12 are about soccer, one about hockey, then there’s a section on the final page where you can read about basketball, volleyball and handball. And that’s a paper that specializes in sports!
