Monaco, 25 October 2005 – An ambitious agreement reached between Euroleague Basketball and the pan-European sport channel Eurosport 2 will provide an unrivalled coverage of the ULEB Cup, starting on November 8, 2005.
In the UK British Eurosport 2 will provide two weekly slots dedicated to the ULEB Cup games including the live transmission of matches on Tuesday nights in prime time followed by another delayed match on the same evening. British Eurosport 2 will broadcast in total all 17 competition weeks from the regular season, up to the Final Game on 11 April 2006.
In addition, British Eurosport 2 will show a 30-minute weekly magazine every Friday in prime time, featuring both Euroleague Basketball and ULEB Cup.
The agreement signed today by Eurosport’s Managing Director of Broadcasting, Laurent-Eric Le Lay, and the CEO of Euroleague Basketball, Jordi Bertomeu, lasts four seasons (2005-06 through 2008-09) and will allow the ULEB Cup and Euroleague Basketball to reach over 20 million European homes.
This partnership between Eurosport 2 and Uleb Cup provides a unique pan-European platform for basketball.
In the words of Jordi Bertomeu, CEO of Euroleague Basketball, the agreement with Eurosport “supposes a very important qualitative leap for Euroleague Basketball and the ULEB Cup in terms of the dissemination of our basketball. The fact of having achieved this in the first year that we directly and independently manage our television rights satisfies us even more. This collaboration with Eurosport will amplify to truly spectacular figures our market of potential television viewers, who will also be guaranteed the broadcasting quality that has always distinguished Eurosport.”
Laurent-Eric Le Lay, Eurosport’s Managing Director of Broadcasting, added: “We are delighted with this new partnership between Eurosport 2 and Euroleague Basketball. Eurosport 2 has an audience of young passionate sports fans, who have great interest in Basketball. The ULEB Cup competition gives Eurosport 2 a unique property in a growing sport in Europe and enlarges our sport and competition offer for the European audience”
About ULEB Cup
The ULEB Cup, which begins its fourth season in November, is formed by 24 teams from 15 different European countries. The system of competition is based on a regular season with four groups of six teams each, three elimination rounds ending with the semi-finals, and a grand final game that this year will be played in Charleroi, Belgium on April 11, 2006. The champions of the previous three ULEB Cup seasons have been Pamesa Valencia of Spain, Hapoel Jerusalem of Israel and Lietuvos Rytas of Lithuania. All information related to the competition can be found on http://www.ulebcup.com/.
About Eurosport 2
Launched in January 2005, Eurosport 2 is an exciting new sports channel that combines the best of LIVE Sport, magazine-style programmes and news. Eurosport 2 is available to over 20 million homes in 7 languages (English, Polish, Turkish, Greek, French, Italian and Russian) across 39 European countries and is part of the Eurosport Group which is today the leading multimedia platform in Europe with Eurosport, Eurosport 2, Eurosportnews, eurosport.com and Eurosport Mobile. In the UK British Eurosport 2 is available on Sky Digital, NTL and Telewest.
Euroleague Basketball contact:
Ferran Marquez, Director of Communication
ferran.marquez@euroleague.net
Tel. +34 660 48 19 07
Eurosport press contacts:
Matt Horler
mhorler@eurosport.com
+44 (0) 1753 45 2513