Country Italy Confederation FIBA Europe Number of teams 16 | Federation Lega Basket First season 1920–21 | |
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Founded 1920; 97 years ago (1920) | ||
The Lega Basket Serie A, officially abbreviated as LBA, (English: Serie A Basketball League) and known for sponsorship reasons as the Serie A PosteMobile, is a professional men's club basketball league that has been organised in Italy since 1920. It constitutes the first and highest-tier level of the Italian league pyramid. The LBA, which is played under FIBA rules, currently consists of 16 teams, with the lowest-placed team relegated to the Serie A2 and replaced by the winner of the play-offs of that division.
Contents
- History
- Title sponsorships
- Competition format
- Arena rules
- Clubs composition
- Qualifying for European competitions
- Media
- Finals
- Champions
- Seasons in LBA
- Individual awards
- References
A total of 99 teams have competed in the LBA since its inception. Seventeen teams have been crowned champions, with Olimpia Milano winning the title a record 27 times, and Virtus Bologna 15 times. According to FIBA Europe's and Euroleague Basketball's national league coefficients, the LBA was the overall historically top ranked national domestic league in Europe, for the period 1958 to 2007. Today, the LBA is considered to be one of the top European national basketball leagues. Its clubs have won the most EuroLeague championships (13), the most FIBA Saporta Cups (15), and the most FIBA Korać Cups (10).
The league is run by the Lega Basket, which is itself regulated by the FIP, the Italian Basketball Federation.
History
A national basketball league was first established in Italy in 1920, with the first title won by S.E.F. Costanza Milano.
In 1991, Glaxo Verona, coached by Alberto Bucci, won the Italian Basketball Cup, eliminating in order Napoli, Juvecaserta, Virtus Bologna and, in the Final Four, they defeated Libertas Livorno and Philips Milano for 97-85. Verona was the only club to have won the Italian Cup starting from Serie A2.
Since then, twenty different teams have won the championship, with Olimpia Milano's twenty seven titles the most and Mens Sana's seven consecutive titles from 2007 to 2013 also a record.
Benetton Treviso was the first ever club in Italy to win all three competitions: the LBA Scudetto, the Italian Cup and the Italian Supercup in the 2002–03 season.
After 2007–08 season, the league was reduced from eighteen to sixteen after two clubs, Basket Napoli and Orlandina Basket, were relegated for financial irregularities and not replaced.
On 4 May 2016 Virtus Bologna was relegated to Serie A2 Basket for the first time in its history after finishing in the last position of the 2015–16 Lega Basket Serie A. Olimpia Milano, Pallacanestro Cantù and Scandone Avellino are the only clubs never relegated in Serie A2 since the introduction of the single regular season group stage phase with a double round-robin, from the 2001–02 season.
On 7 October 2016, following an investigation for accounting and fiscal fraud, the Court of the Italian Basketball Federation has revoked the championship titles awarded to Mens Sana Siena for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons, two Italian Cups (2012 and 2013) and the 2013 Supercoppa. The revocation came after the prosecutor's office recommended such measures following the charging of club leaders with receiving stolen goods, criminal association for tax fraud and fraudulent bankruptcy. Former general manager, Ferdinando Minucci, vice president Paola Serpi and sports director Olga Finetti were all removed from their positions. Under the name Montepaschi Siena, derived from sponsor Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the club was a dominant presence in Serie A, winning 5 titles in a row from 2006-07 to 2010-11, besides the two more titles now revoked by the Italian Federation, whilst also challenging for titles in Europe. After financial problems caused the club to go bankrupt in 2014, it moved down to the fourth division. It is now in Serie A2, the second division.
Egidio Bianchi, President of LBA, said that there should be more severe rules. Bianchi announces that the league will increase controls to prevent similar cases from happening again, and he said: "we will propose stricter checks which should enter into force as early as the next season begin. The goal is to have more detailed documentation for admission of teams at the Italian League and also more accurate controls during the season".
In December 2016 took place in Rome the assembly of Lega Basket during which the president Egidio Bianchi has communicated to all the clubs to have reached the multi-year agreement with PosteMobile, an Italy-based mobile virtual network operator owned by Poste italiane Group, that will become the Title Sponsor of the LBA. PosteMobile replaces Beko after four years of sponsorship.
Title sponsorships
From 1993 to 2016, the Lega Basket Serie A had title sponsorship rights sold to eight companies; Beko was the most recent title sponsor, having sponsored the Lega Basket Serie A from 2012 through 2016.
From the end of the 2015–16 season, Lega Basket Serie A has a new sponsor. The Turkish brand Beko left Serie A after four years of sponsorship. Beko decided to focus just on their sponsorship of the Spanish football team Barcelona and left all the basketball leagues around Europe they sponsored. In December 2016, President Egidio Bianchi has communicated to have reached the an agreement with PosteMobile that will become the Title Sponsor of the LBA.
Competition format
The competition format follows the usual double round-robin format. During the course of a season, which lasts from October to May, each club plays every other club twice, once at home and once away, for a total of 30 games. Teams receive two points for a win and no points for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points. At the end of the season, the eight best teams in the standings start a play-off, pitting the first place team in the standings versus the 8th place team in the standings, and so on.
There are three playoff rounds. The Quarterfinals are best of five, while the semifinals and finals series are best of seven (in the 2012–13 season, all series were best-of-seven). The winner of the finals round becomes the champion of the LBA.
Each season, the last qualified club of the regula reason is relegated to Serie A2 Basket, and is replaced by the winner of the playoffs of this league.
Arena rules
LBA clubs must play in arenas that seat at least 3,500 people. From 2017–18 season, clubs must host their home playoffs matches in arenas that have a seating capacity of at least 5,000 people.
Clubs composition
Each team is allowed either five or seven foreign players under two formulas:
- 5 foreigners from countries outside the European Union
- 3 foreigners from countries outside the E.U., 4 foreigners from E.U. countries (also including those from countries signatory of the Cotonou Agreement)
Each club can choose the 5+5 formula, that consists of five Italian players and five foreign players, and the 3+4+5 formula, with five Italian players, three foreigners from countries outside the E.U. and four foreigners from E.U. countries or "Cotonou Countries".
At the end of the season there will be a prize of €500.000,00 for the top three ranked teams, that had chosen the 5+5 formula, considering the playing time of Italian players, and €200.000,00 for those teams that will obtain the best results with their youth sector.
Qualifying for European competitions
In summer 2016, four Italian teams (Reggio Emilia, Trento, Sassari and Cantù) were forced to withdraw from EuroCup because of the FIBA and Euroleague Basketball controversy. From this season Italian Federation will allow LBA clubs to rejoin EuroCup. There will be at least six teams in Europe. One in EuroLeague (Olimpia Milano directly enter the EuroLeague as licensed club), two in EuroCup and three in Basketball Champions League. Lega Basket has to decide which cup between EuroCup and Basketball Champions League is more important and than, based on final ranking and sports merit, teams will join the two Cups.
Media
For the 2015–16 and 2016–17 seasons, domestic TV rights are shared by RAI and Sky Italia.
Finals
Source: LBA
Champions
Bold indicates clubs which will play in the 2016–17 Lega Basket Serie A.
Seasons in LBA
There are 99 teams that have taken part in 78 LBA championships in a single round that was played from the 1937-1938 season until the 2016–17 season. The teams in bold compete in LBA currently.