The European professional club basketball system or European professional club basketball pyramid is a series of interconnected competitions for professional basketball clubs in Europe. The system has a hierarchical format with a promotion and demotion system between competitions at different levels.
Contents
The tier pyramid
There are currently four different competitions on the pyramid – the 1st tier level EuroLeague, the 2nd tier level EuroCup, FIBA's self-anointed 2nd-tier level (which is disputed by Euroleague Basketball, which considers it as the 3rd-tier level) Champions League, and the 4th tier level FIBA Europe Cup. The EuroLeague and EuroCup competitions are organized by Euroleague Basketball, and the Champions League and FIBA Europe Cup competitions are organized by FIBA Europe.
The tier levels
For the 2016–17 season, the European professional club basketball system is as follows:
Evolution of the European basketball competitions
The table below shows the tier structure of the pyramid for both the former FIBA era, and the current Euroleague Basketball era. Current competitions are indicated in green.
History
The evolution of the names of the various international European inter–continental and European inter–regional professional club basketball competitions (1990—2015):
There also have been a few other international club basketball competitions played in Europe, which do not exist anymore. Many others have changed their names multiple times.