 | |
| Organising body | Euroleague Basketball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 7 July 2002; 22 years ago (2002-07-07)[1] |
| First season | ULEB Cup 2002–03 Eurocup 2008–09 EuroCup 2016–17 |
| Region | Europe |
| Number of teams | 20 |
| Level onpyramid | 2 |
| Related competitions | EuroLeague |
| Current champions |  Hapoel Tel Aviv (1st title)(2024–25) |
| Most championships |  Valencia (4 titles) |
| TV partners | tv.euroleague.net |
| Website | euroleaguebasketball.net/eurocup |
 2024–25 EuroCup Basketball | |
EuroCup Basketball, commonly known as theEuroCup and currently calledBKT EuroCup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual professionalbasketball club competition organized byEuroleague Basketball. The league is regarded asEuroleague Basketball's second-tier professional basketball club tournament.
Founded asULEB Cup in 2002, the competition lasted until 2008 when a new competition was introduced after an agreement betweenULEB andFIBA under the name ofEuroCup for the2008–09 season, following a change in format.[2] Given that theFIBA EuroChallenge was known as EuroCup until 2008, a new era of stronger cooperation between ULEB and FIBA Europe was set in 2008. The number of the new competition was increased to a total of 48 and the winner of the 3rd tierFIBA EuroCup Challenge, formerly known as EuroCup would get an automatic qualification for the tournament's following season, for first time.
Though initially advertised as a new competition, the ULEB Cup and EuroCup Basketball are now considered the same competition, with the change of name being simply a re-branding.
Since the 2021–22 season both EuroCup finalists qualify for next season's EuroLeague. Until then only the winner was entitled to the one year licence.
The title has been won by 16 clubs, 3 of which have won the title more than once. Themost successful club in the competition areValencia Basket, with four titles. The current champions areHapoel Tel Aviv, winning their first title after defeatingCB Gran Canaria in the 2025 Finals.
The competition was created in 2002, as the ULEB Cup, and has had several names:
On 7 July 2016,Chipita and Euroleague Basketball announced a strategic agreement to sponsor the European competition across the globe. According to the agreement, starting with the 2016–17 season, the competition would be named 7DAYS EuroCup. This title partnership was set to run for three seasons.[3]
| Evolution of the EuroCup logo | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002–2008 | 2008–2016 | 2016–2023 | 2023–present | |||||
 |  |  | | |||||
Clubs qualify for the competition based on their performance in their domestic leagues competitions. For this purpose, the clubs from countries participating in theABA League qualify for the competition based on their performance in the ABA League, and not their domestic leagues.
Starting with the2016–17 season, the EuroCup's first phase is theRegular Season, in which 20 teams participate. The participants include 20 clubs automatically entered into the Regular Season. Each team plays two games (home-and-away) against every other team in its group. At the end of the Regular Season, the field is cut from 20 to 16. The next phase, known as theTop 16, then begins, featuring the 16 survivors of the Regular Season in four-team groups. As in the Regular Season, each Top 16 group is contest in a doubleround-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the third phase, thePlayoffs. Each playoff series isbest-of-three, and the winners of each series advance to the next round persistently until the Finals. Home advantage in the series goes to the best placed team in the Top 16. TheFinals features the two remaining series winners in abest-of-three series with home advantage in the series to the best placed team in the Top 16.
Historically, the competition began with a group phase in which the starting field was reduced to 16 teams. The survivors then advanced to a knockout phase. In the inaugural2002–03 season, the knockout phase consisted entirely of two-legged ties. In the following2003–04 season, the final became a one-off game, but all other knockout ties remained two-legged.
In the2007–08 season, the initial phase, now called the Regular Season, was only used to reduce the field to 32 teams. The survivors were paired into two-legged knockout ties, with the winners advancing to another set of two-legged ties. The survivors then entered the first-ever Final Eight phase in the competition's history, consisting of one-off knockout games.
The following2008–09 season, was the first in which preliminary rounds were conducted. That year saw two preliminary rounds held, the first involving 16 teams, and the second involving the eight winners, plus eight teams that had received byes into that round. The survivors of the second preliminary round joined 24 direct qualifiers in the Regular Season. This season also saw the introduction of the Last 16 group phase, and proved to be the last for the Final Eight.
The last stage of the EuroCup, the EuroCup Finals, was reduced from eight teams to four, starting with the2009–10 season. This stage was directly analogous to theEuroLeague Final Four, and like that stage of theEuroLeague, consisted of one-off knockout semifinals, followed by a single-game final. Unlike the EuroLeague Final Four, in which the third-place game and final are held two days after the semifinals, the corresponding games of the EuroCup were held the day after the semifinals.
In the2012–13 season, the final was decided by a single game format, after double-legged semifinals and quarterfinals. For the2013–14 season, the competition increased from 32 to 48 teams in the Regular Season phase. Another innovation that started in the 2013–14 season, was that the clubs were divided into two regional conferences, the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference, for the Regular Season phase.[4] The size of the groups grew to six teams, where the first three qualified teams joined the Last 32 stage. In addition, the eightEuroLeague clubs that did not qualify for the EuroLeague Top 16 phase, joined the remaining 24 EuroCup teams and the Finals were decided by a double-legged series.
For the2014–15 season, the competition contained 36 teams at the group stage. There were 6 groups, each containing 6 teams. The 36 teams consisted of the 7 teams that were eliminated in the2014–15 Euroleague season qualification rounds, and 29 teams that qualified directly to the 2014–15 EuroCup, either through 2013–14 season results, or throughwild cards. The top four teams from each of the Regular Season groups with the eightEuroLeague clubs that did not qualify for the EuroLeague Top 16 phase qualified to join the Last 32 stage. For the2015–16 season, the competition contained 36 clubs automatically entered into the Regular Season and the eightEuroLeague clubs that did not qualify for the EuroLeague Top 16 phase qualified to join the Last 32 stage.
Effective as of the2012–13 season, all EuroCup clubs must host their home games in arenas that have a regularseating capacity of at least 2,500 (all seated), and an additional minimum capacity of 200VIP seats available.[5] By comparison,EuroLeague licensed clubs host their home games in arenas that seat at least 10,000 people, while EuroLeague associated clubs must have arenas that seat 5,000.
After a given EuroCup season, before the finals, annual EuroCup awards are handed out to players and coaches. These awards include:[6]
A total number of 179 clubs from 30 countries have participated in the competition.
| Rank | Nation | Champion | Finalist |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Spain | 8 Valencia (4),Real Madrid (1),Joventut (1),Málaga (1),Gran Canaria (1) | 7 Valencia (2),Real Madrid (1),Girona (1),Real Betis (1),Bilbao (1),Gran Canaria (1) |
| 2. |  Russia | 5 Khimki (2),Dynamo Moscow (1),UNICS (1),Lokomotiv Kuban (1) | 4 UNICS (2),Khimki (1),Lokomotiv Kuban (1) |
| 3. |  Turkey | 2 Galatasaray (1),Darüşşafaka (1) | 2 Bursaspor (1),Türk Telekom (1) |
| - |  France | 2 Monaco (1),Paris (1) | 2 Strasbourg (1),JL Bourg (1) |
| 5. |  Lithuania | 2 Rytas (2) | 1 Rytas (1) |
| 6. | Israel | 2 Hapoel Jerusalem (1),Hapoel Tel Aviv (1) | — |
| 7. |  Italy | 1 Virtus Bologna (1) | — |
| 8. |  Greece | — | 2 Makedonikos (1),Aris (1) |
| - |  Germany | — | 2 Alba Berlin (2) |
| 10. |  Slovenia | — | 1 Krka (1) |
| Average | Totals | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points |  Igor Rakočević | 19.05 |  Bojan Dubljević | 1,217 |
| Rebounds | Vladimir Golubović | 8.39 |  Vladimir Veremeenko[7] | 609 |
| Assists | Omar Cook | 6.44 | Stefan Marković | 491 |
| Steals |  Jerry McCullough | 2.82 | Mire Chatman | 167 |
| Blocks | Andre Riddick | 1.77 | Andre Riddick | 147 |
| Index Ratings | Michael Wright | 22.14 | Mire Chatman | 1,472 |
Source:[9][10][11][12][13][14]
| Seasons | |
|---|---|
| Finals | |
| Other | |
