Euroleague (EU) 2026/27

The **EuroLeague** stands as the premier men's professional club basketball competition in Europe, organized by Euroleague Basketball. It holds the top tier status (Level 1) of European club basketball, sitting directly above the EuroCup. The competition operates on a semi-closed license system rather than relying on pure domestic promotion. Teams hold long-term licenses, with twelve permanent shareholders and several wild card holders for the 2025–26 season. This structure includes the first non-European team, Dubai Basketball.

The format consists of a regular season where teams play a double round-robin followed by playoffs. The top six teams advance directly to the quarterfinals, while teams ranked seventh through tenth enter a play-in tournament for the final two playoff spots. Quarterfinals are best-of-five series, while the Semifinals and Final are single-elimination games played at a neutral venue known as the Final Four. As of the 2025–26 season, the league expanded to twenty teams.

Real Madrid is the most successful club with eleven titles. The current champion is Fenerbahçe Beko, who won the 2024–25 title by defeating AS Monaco 81–70 in the Final Four in Abu Dhabi. Notable reforms include the 2016 shift to a league format with long-term licenses and the 2025 sponsorship change from Turkish Airlines to Etihad Airways. The key distinction from the EuroCup is that the EuroLeague is a semi-closed league with guaranteed licenses for most participants. The competition traces its roots to 1957 when it was founded by FIBA as the FIBA European Champions Cup. A split occurred in 2000 when top clubs formed Euroleague Basketball, and the two entities merged in 2001 under the Euroleague Basketball brand.