EuroCup Basketball
EuroCup Basketball, commonly known as the EuroCup and currently called 7DAYS EuroCup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual professional basketball club competition that has been organized by Euroleague Basketball since 2002. Behind the EuroLeague, the league is widely regarded as the second-tier European professional basketball club competition. Founded in 2002 under the name ULEB Cup, the competition has been known as the Eurocup since the 2008–09 season, following a change in format. The ULEB Cup and EuroCup Basketball are considered the same competition, with the change of name being simply a re-branding. The two EuroCup finalists  qualify for next season's EuroLeague. The title has been won by 11 clubs, 3 of which have won the title more than once. The most successful club in the competition are Valencia Basket, with four titles. The current champions are Monaco, winning their first title after defeating UNICS in the 2021 Finals. History. The competition was created in 2002, as the ULEB Cup, and has had several names: Sponsorship names. On 7 July 2016, Chipita and Euroleague Basketball announced a strategic agreement to sponsor the European competition across the globe. According to the agreement, starting with the 2016–17 season , the competition would be named 7DAYS EuroCup. This title partnership was set to run for three seasons. Qualification. Clubs qualify for the competition based on their performance in their domestic leagues competitions. For this purpose, the clubs from countries participating in the ABA League qualify for the competition based on their performance in the ABA League, and not their domestic leagues. Format. Starting with the 2016–17 season, the EuroCup's first phase is the Regular Season, in which 24 teams participate. The participants include 24 clubs automatically entered into the Regular Season. Each team plays two games (home-and-away ) against every other team in its group. At the end of the Regular Season, the field is cut from 24 to 16. The next phase, known as the Top 16, then begins, featuring the 16 survivors of the Regular Season in four-team groups. As in the Regular Season, each Top 16 group is contest in a double round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the third phase, the Playoffs. Each playoff series is best-of-three, and the winners of each series advance to the next round persistently until the Finals. Home advantage in the  series goes to the best placed team in the Top 16. The Finals features the two remaining series winners in a best-of-three series with home advantage in the series to the best placed team in the Top 16. Previous EuroCup formats. Historically, the competition began with a group phase in which the starting field was reduced to 16 teams. The survivors then advanced to a knockout phase. In the inaugural 2002–03 season, the knockout phase consisted entirely of two-legged ties. In the following 2003–04 season, the final became a one-off game, but all other knockout ties  remained two-legged. In the 2007–08 season, the initial phase, now called the Regular Season, was only used to reduce the field to 32 teams. The survivors were paired into two-legged knockout ties, with the winners advancing to another set of two-legged ties. The survivors then entered the first-ever Final Eight phase in the competition's history, consisting of one-off knockout games. The following 2008–09 season, was the first in which preliminary rounds were conducted. That year saw two preliminary rounds held, the first involving 16 teams, and the second involving the eight winners, plus eight  teams that had received byes into that round. The survivors of the second preliminary round joined 24 direct qualifiers in the Regular Season. This season also saw the introduction of the Last 16 group phase, and proved to be the last for the Final Eight. The last stage of the EuroCup, the EuroCup Finals, was reduced from eight teams to four, starting with the 2009–10 season. This stage was directly analogous to the EuroLeague Final Four, and like that stage of the EuroLeague, consisted of one-off knockout semifinals, followed by a single-game final. Unlike the EuroLeague Final Four , in which the third-place game and final are held two days after the semifinals, the corresponding games of the EuroCup were held the day after the semifinals. In the 2012–13 season, the final was decided by a single game format, after double-legged semifinals and quarterfinals. For the 2013–14 season, the competition increased from 32 to 48 teams in the Regular Season phase. Another innovation that started in the 2013–14 season, was that the clubs were divided into two regional conferences, the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference, for the Regular Season phase. The size of the groups grew  to six teams, where the first three qualified teams joined the Last 32 stage. In addition, the eight EuroLeague clubs that did not qualify for the EuroLeague Top 16 phase, joined the remaining 24 EuroCup teams and the Finals were decided by a double-legged series. For the 2014–15 season, the competition contained 36 teams at the group stage. There were 6 groups, each containing 6 teams. The 36 teams consisted of the 7 teams that were eliminated in the 2014–15 Euroleague season qualification rounds, and 29 teams that qualified directly to the 2014–15 EuroCup, either through 2013–14 season results , or through wild cards. The top four teams from each of the Regular Season groups with the eight EuroLeague clubs that did not qualify for the EuroLeague Top 16 phase qualified to join the Last 32 stage. For the 2015–16 season, the competition contained 36 clubs automatically entered into the Regular Season and the eight EuroLeague clubs that did not qualify for the EuroLeague Top 16 phase qualified to join the Last 32 stage. Arena standards. Effective as of the 2012–13 season, all EuroCup clubs must host their home games in arenas that have a regular seating capacity of at  least 2,500 (all seated), and an additional minimum capacity of 200 VIP seats available. By comparison, EuroLeague licensed clubs host their home games in arenas that seat at least 10,000 people, while EuroLeague associated clubs must have arenas that seat 5,000. Awards. After a given EuroCup season, before the finals, annual EuroCup awards are handed out to players and coaches. These awards include: