European basketball’s elite EuroLeague is reportedly set to announce that the city of Abu Dhabi, UAE, will host the 2025 edition of its season-ending Final Four.
Greek publication SNDA first reported that the annual showcase, which serves as the finale of the EuroLeague post-season playoffs, will take place across May 23-25, 2025 in the UAE capital, the first time the event will be staged outside of Europe since its inception in 1966.
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The motion to host the games in Abu Dhabi was said to have passed by a vote of 11-2 (among the 13 EuroLeague A-licensed teams).
Of the 13 teams, 12 of which currently compete in the competition (CSKA Moscow are suspended due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but still retain a shareholder vote), only Spain’s Real Madrid and Greece’s Olympiakos voted against the proposal.
Although the host arena has not been confirmed, the obvious choice is the city’s 18,000-capacity Etihad Arena, which in the past has hosted basketball contests from North America’s NBA, as well as exhibition games competed in by the US national team.
The 2024 Final Four was hosted in Berlin, Germany, and was preceded by Kaunas, Lithuania (2023), and Belgrade, Serbia (2022).
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By GlobalDataBelgrade, which also hosted the Final Four in 2018, was seen as the front-runner to host the 2025 edition until global sports agency IMG, a long-term joint venture partner of the EuroLeague, reportedly intervened on behalf of Abu Dhabi with a far more lucrative offer, with the Emirate reportedly set to pay a record fee to the tune of €50 million ($52 million) for hosting rights.
That funding cache reportedly sees the EuroLeague’s joint venture with IMG now meet the funding goal requisite to extend the partnership beyond its initial 10-year span, a factor likely pivotal in Abu Dhabi’s successful bid.
This isn’t the first attempted incursion into the Middle East for the EuoLeague, which in 2023 toyed with the idea of having a member team from Dubai (Dubai BC) enter the 18-team league.
Although talks with Dubai BC were confirmed in January 2024, basketball’s lack of substantial popularity in the Middle East instead saw the team join southeastern Europe’s regional ABA League (in which a few EuroLeague teams also compete domestically).
Despite that, the reasoning behind the EuroLeague’s continued interest in the Middle East, the world’s richest region and a growing hub for sports investment at a time when many franchises are struggling for funding, is obvious, and it was only a matter of time before a tangible link was confirmed.
In terms of recent EuroLeague activity, mid-November saw the league announce a new multi-year partnership with banking services giant Visa.
The three-year deal, starting immediately and running through the end of the 2026-27 campaign, sees Visa become the official payments partner of the EuroLeague, as well as the second-tier EuroCup.
