Euroleague stars tip off EBI Annual Workshops in Barcelona

The fourth edition of the Euroleague Basketball Institute Annual Workshops started with a bang on Wednesday as player representatives from the Turkish Airlines Euroleague teams spent the day together going behind the scenes at the company's headquarters and discussing their role in making the competition better now and in the future.

The players started their visit by getting immersed in Euroleague Basketball's corporate social responsibility programme, One Team. They participated in an hour-long One Team training session designed to show them how the programme's beneficiaries - thousands of people from disadvantaged groups across Europe - feel when players devote their time to teaching teamwork and other life skills through sport.

Several of the players who are One Team Ambassadors for their clubs - Devin Smith of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Evgeny Voronov of Lokomotiv Kuban Krasnodar and Giacomo Devecchi of Dinamo Banco di Sardegna Sassari - helped lead the session, drawing on their own experiences in the programme.

"I consider One Team a very good step towards helping a lot of different people in different ways. I really like it," Vlantimir Giankovits of Panathinaikos Athens said. "I would like in every basketball camp around the world they young people there to see something like this. Give them something like this or a small talk to show how this program works and, of course, do the program. It's something that is getting bigger as time passes. People are interested in what One Team is and how it works, and I think in the future it will become even bigger and better.

"I would really love to do something like this as an ambassador. People follow the players and what we do, so I think we should all be interested in working with what One Team is trying to do."

After the One Team session, the players participated for a second consecutive year in their own EBI Annual Workshop, where they heard from Euroleague Basketball management about everything from the evolution of the company's economic results to its objectives and to challenges presented by a changing sports industry landscape. At the same time, they had the floor to comment and ask questions about the company.

"It's interesting for us players to get the insider perspective as far as what goes into everything, how the Euroleague works from a business standpoint and a media standpoint," Bryce Taylor of FC Bayern Munich said. "It is really informative for me and great to be a part of it because I feel that I can learn and bring a lot of what I learn back to my teammates."

The players focused especially on their unique role as the most recognized spokesmen of the competition in engaging fans, local communities and international audiences. They also heard how the multiplication of communication channels makes players more visible than ever before and offers both challenges and risks depending on their approach to recent innovations like social media.

In a review of the many means by which players can engage with fans today, the group was asked to always consider their status as role models, especially for young fans.

"It's really impressive and great to be a part of. I never had the chance before to know so many important things about the Euroleague as I heard today," Bogdan Bogdanovic of Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul said. "After this, I see how I can be important for many of the fans around Europe, and I realize I need to care about more things, like communication, for instance."

The players were to finish their day continuing their discussions at a group dinner in Barcelona, with several of them staying on Thursday to shoot promotional videos for next season.