The Euroleague Commercial Assets Shareholders Meeting was held today, Panathinaikos to be present, represented by the BC president, Dimitris Giannakopoulos and vice president, Manos Papadopoulos.
The Euroleague premiere will take place on October 17-18. Regular season will end on December 19-20. The Top16 will begin on January 2-3 and will be completed on April 10-11. There is a scheduled recess for February 6-9, period of time in which each country’s Cup Finals are to be held. There will be no change in the playoffs. The first game will be held on April 15-16, the second April 17-18. There will be no gap between the second and the third game, to be held on April 20-21. The fourth game, if necessary will be held on April 22-23 and the fifth (if necessary) will be held on April 25. The Final Four will take place May 15-18.
The shareholders also approved a competition system change in which the eight Euroleague teams who do not reach the Top 16 will be integrated at mid-season into the Eurocup.
Next on the meeting agenda were technical rule changes that will come into effect at the beginning of next season after approval by the shareholders. The changes include the reinstatement of jump balls to replace the alternating possession rule. Teams will still inbound the ball at the start of every quarter after the first, but with the winner of the opening tipoff getting possession to start the fourth quarter, while the other team starts the second and third quarters on offense. Additionally, the technical foul penalty will be reduced to one free throw from two, plus possession of the ball. Two technical fouls by one player in a game will now result in his disqualification.
In order to speed up the game, timeouts will be reduced in time. In the first half, each team will have one 60-second and one 30-second timeout. In the second half, they will get two 60-second and one 30-second timeout, although in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, they may use only one of each type. In the same vein, the time between quarters and before each extra period has been cut from 2 minutes to 90 seconds.
Finally, the shareholders approved plans for a global commercial strategy.
