On Thursday, September 21, VTB Arena hosted a press conference dedicated to the opening of the budgets of the 2022/23 season participating clubs of the 2021/22 season. The VTB United League Honorary President Sergey Ivanov, President Sergey Kushchenko and the General Manager Ilona Korstin took part in it.
As for the budgets: Zenit is the leader with 2 billion 186 million rubles. Also in the top three are CSKA (2 billion 142 million rubles) and Lokomotiv Kuban (1 billion 366 million rubles), followed by UNICS (1 billion 201 million rubles), Samara (539 million rubles), Pari Nizhny Novgorod (454 million rubles), PARMA (356 million rubles), MBA (277 million rubles), Enisey (276 million rubles) and Avtodor (199 million rubles).
The VTB United League Honorary President Sergey Ivanov:
– We reveal club budgets. For many people, this has become routine – this is the second year in a row we have done it – but we will continue to do it, because it disciplines the clubs. And in general, only in professional basketball the public can judge the real state of things. In other sports and even professional leagues this was not even a thing.
If we talk about the VTB United League budget, it has increased quite seriously. Revenues totalled 1 billion 365 million rubles. I am pleased with that, because the expenses are also growing, there are more games, and in the new season there will be even more. We are preparing for it in advance. 150 million rubles in the expenses are written for the prize fund. This is the money that goes to the clubs. They get it for participation in the League, they do not pay. They receive, it is a fundamental difference.
The VTB United League President Sergey Kushchenko:
– We already had Partizan, and Crvena Zvezda had their own tournament on the same dates. Partizan could not come to the SuperCup, unfortunately. Although there was an idea to invite Partizan in addition to Fenerbahce. Regarding the increase of our teams, this is a trial for young clubs that have recently entered the League. You can take MBA as an example – they played against the Euroleague team for the first time in history. When the first quarter was over and MBA were winning, their general manager texted me and asked to finish the game based on the results of the first quarter. So we have done a good job, we have good relations with Serbian and Turkish clubs. We will try to continue and maybe the format of the next SuperCup may change. Good quality basketball will be in Moscow for four days.
Our regulations state that clubs must have a youth team. We had 14 youth team players promoted to the main teams last season. That is an important factor. The clubs attitude on youth players preparation, how to raise them and give the opportunity to play is changing. We pay a lot of attention to the youth project. Every season we raise the quality of competition so that young players can feel the real struggle. And our Youth League Final is already became interesting, we are proud of it. The signature VTB League Youth SuperCup champion appears in a player profile. That means he is worth a little bit more.
The VTB United League General Manager Ilona Korstin:
– Let me explain about the League budget increase. We started earning more ourselves. We received more from bookmakers, obligatory deductions. We started to receive more for TV rights, we sell TV rights, our contract with Match TV has become better. And the League is also making good use of the funds we have, we are earning on deposits. The League has started earning more money on its own, and ude to this our budget has increased.
We will celebrate our 15th anniversary at the All-Star Game. Indeed, 15 years is already quite a decent period of time. On the other hand, the NBA is 77 years old. We are always being compared to the NBA. But 77 and 15 years is a big difference. We’ve made a lot of progress in 15 years. If you think back to what it was: we had a lot of teams playing, we had 13 countries in 15 years, we had stars who shone in our League, like Kirilenko, Teodosic, De Colo. So we have a lot to remember, and we will remember our heroes throughout the season. All those who contributed to the League development. Anniversaries and birthdays are good reasons. So this year we will try to celebrate our anniversary.
