Sportingbet, Euroleague Basketball, IMG mark agreement‏

A four-year agreement that makes Sportingbet the Official Betting Partner of Euroleague Basketball in Greece was celebrated with a presentation press conference in Athens on Wednesday that emphasized their cooperation to denounce violence in sport and to send that message together going forward.

Currently in its first season, the agreement comes after a decade-long relationship between Euroleague Basketball and Sportingbet that dates back to 2005. The new four-year agreement is the first that Euroleague Basketball has developed together with its joint venture partner, IMG, under a new commercial rights structure.
The press conference was held at the Athens Concert Hall and featured representatives of all three companies – Mr. Yannis Capodistrias, Sportingbet Greece General Manager; Mr. Jordi Bertomeu, Euroleague Basketball President and CEO; and Mr. Adam Kelly, SVP, Head of Sales EMEA & Business Development Worldwide at IMG Media – as well as players from both of the city's Turkish Airlines Euroleague clubs, Daniel Hackett of Olympiacos Piraeus and MarQuez Haynes of Panathinaikos Athens.

Among the features of the new agreement, Euroleague Basketball is lending its support to a Sportingbet campaign denouncing violence in sport. Additionally, Sportingbet will sponsor a tour that will let Greek fans see up close and take pictures with the official Turkish Airlines Euroleague Trophy.
The participants in the press conference said the following:

Mr. Jordi Bertomeu, Euroleague Basketball President and CEO

"Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. It's always a pleasure to come here to Athens. We feel at home here in a basketball country. There are few countries like that so we are proud to say it and to share this with you. I would like to express my gratitude to Daniel and to Marquez for being with us. I know we keep you busy and we are asking also this effort from you when it's your time to rest, so thank you. I also want to thank a Euroleague legend we have with us today, Theo Papaloukas. Thanks for coming."

"It's an important day for us, a day to welcome to the Euroleague sponsorship family Sportingbet, for which I wish to thank now Mr. Capodistrias. It's more like welcome back, because we have been with Sportingbet before, dating to 2012, but now we're back and happy for the decision Mr. Capodistrias and his team have taken to join us in this important moment in our history. Thanks you for your commitment to these different initiatives in the next four years. We are happy that Sportingbet will be helping us, with a trophy tour all around Greece, to give fans a chance to interact with the official Turkish Airlines Euroleague trophy. And it's also important to point out our commitment to Sportingbet's campaign against violence in sports. It's a sensitive issue for everyone, so to have this cooperation with Sportingbet shows us how important it is, that anti-violence message, for anyone delivering a product like ours to society.

"It's also an exciting day for us to have and to announce this as our first commercial sponsorship with our new partner, IMG. It's the first of many that will come in the next months and years, of course, and will prove that it was the right decision to be in partnership with IMG, a leader in the field. As you know, we have 40 clubs that will be part of this project to deliver the best basketball to the fans, which is our objective. The Euroleague will become a real European league for the first time in European sports with this initiative. We'll have that true Euroleague starting in the 2016-2017 season with the top teams playing each other in a round-robin format of 30 game days, and then the playoffs and Final Four as in other years until now. With this and the resizing of the Eurocup, we are sending a clear message of trying to bring quality to our fans. We are focused on delivering quality to fans, sponsors, media partners and all the partners who want to join us in this project we are launching. We'll have more to announce in the future, but starting with this - in fact, we have been together since the beginning of the season - we will be working going forward with Sportingbet here in Greece for the next four years, and we hope many more years in the future."

Mr. Adam Kelly, SVP, Head of Sales EMEA & Business Development Worldwide at IMG Media

"Thank you everyone for coming. It's important to me and the company to express our gratitude and to emphasize just how important this agreement is for basketball. We see the partnership between Euroleague Basketball and IMG as fundamental for the future of basketball and for our company and our positioning in sports business. When it comes to basketball, there is no better place than Greece. It's passion for basketball competition is second to none, so it's great for us to announce this first agreement here in Greece with Sportingbet.

"For me, this project has been in close development for almost two years, and four months ago we announced the partnership. It's important to express that we have a binding relationship with the Euroleague. We support this project financially but also structurally, most importantly. Why have we taken this very strong move? Normally we're an agency that operates in the background. If you're not in the industry, maybe you would not have heard of us, because IMG is on the business side of sport. But this is huge for us because we see a huge amount of potential in the Euroleague and Eurocup and we think it will transform the scenario for basketball in Europe.

"It's a new era. The financial support is strong, in fact it's larger than what you have seen in the press, and that's because we believe in it. The market looks more positive than we anticipated, and in the coming weeks we'll have even more announcements.

"Why do we believe so strongly in this? Because it's a project that the broadcasters, marketing partners, sponsors, coaches, players, teams, digital entities all believe in, too. Everyone really understands what we are trying to build. It is a clear vision. We are going to make the Euroleague into a super-premium product, even better than what it is today. We will do that by reinforcing the structures of club basketball in Europe, as Jordi said. And we will do so by strengthening and adding to all the key attributes that make the Euroleague strong: every game is competitive, there's tension and excitement all the time, and, most importantly, every game matters. This is unique to the Euroleague in basketball. It's an approach that Jordi and the Euroleague have built over the years, and we will continue to emphasize next year and in the 10 years after that. We are committed and we think this will elevate the Euroleague and the Eurocup to greater heights.

"I also want to congratulate Sportingbet for supporting the Euroleague and for their anti-violence campaign. It's the first step towards a bright future ahead for all participants in the competition."

Mr. Yannis Capodistrias, Sportingbet Greece General Manager:

"It's a great pleasure to be here in this memorable occasion. We are announcing our anti-violence campaign here and also our collaboration with IMG and Euroleague. It is great to hear about and be a part of this great future with Euroleague Basketball."

"At Sportingbet, we make strategic partnerships with partners that share the same values. Euroleague Basketball has improved the sport of basketball on a clubs level in Europe as much as anyone else and created the circumstances so that we all live big basketball moments. Big moments are the moments we love at Sportingbet and now, with this new strategic partnership with Euroleague Basketball and IMG, we seek to be a national partner with them. Euroleague Basketball and IMG identified these opportunities for the partnership and we are very pleased to announce it now. We announce this four-year partnership, which is a long-term partnership compared to the standards in this country. I want to thank Euroleague Basketball and IMG for their trust and the perfect collaboration so far.

Basketball is the sport that a majority of us in this room have played during their childhoods in the schoolyard and on the playgrounds. It is the sport that has made us nationally proud, maybe more than any other country. Basketball creates character, creates brothers, and it is not possible to create enemies. After the recommendation of our partner, we have found ways to fight against violence, not because basketball as a sport has problems like other sectors in our society or other sports, but because basketball deserves to remain completely unaffected by that, to be completely clean from violence inside and outside of the arenas. The first example is the players themselves and the coaches. The basic concept of the campaign we have created is exactly this, that in great moments the opponents shake their hands, they hug each other and they turn their backs against behavior that is not true to the sporting spirit."

Daniel Hackett, Olympiacos Piraeus:

"First of all thanks for having us here. It is an honor to be with Marquez, Jordi and these two big sponsors, sharing what we do and believing in what we do. As these guys said, it's amazing what the Euroleague has created through the years. The fans appreciate it, the arenas are full of people who share and love basketball just like us.

"It's important that us players keep this game clean, show sportsmanship and overall show mutual respect to each other. We have the example of two huge clubs here, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, and the respect we have to show between our clubs is very important. We must keep the game clean and must understand that kids all over Europe are looking up to us. We have to the chance to show this commitment to the game by going on the floor every day to be an example to them."

Marquez Haynes, Panathinaikos Athens:

"Thanks for having me here. Most everything has been said already. One of the biggest keywords is passion. Being in the Euroleague for a few years now, everywhere you go, every arena, you see the passion. I have been in Greece for a few weeks only, but the key word I see here is passion. This anti-violence campaign is perfect for us because we sacrifice most of our lives to be here to compete and give everything we have. But when you give so much, sometimes it's easy to spill over and to go too far. So the mutual respect Daniel was talking about is key: for fans and players alike. But it starts with us on the floor, where we have to keep it clean for 40 minutes, and hopefully that translates to the fans to make it an enjoyable experience. Basketball was always the game, since I was little, that unites people. That's why I'm here. If it didn't unite people, I wouldn't be here meeting you. If we can make a common cause, which is something the Euroleague has done since I've known about it, this anti-violence campaign can be great. If we do it right, everyone can enjoy our sport even more."