London 2013

It's been already a couple of weeks since I attended the basketball Euroleague's Final Four in London. For those who are not familiar with the competition, the Final Four is a yearly event that takes places during three days with the 4 best teams in Europe. On the first day they play the semi-finals, then a day to rest and on the last day the game for the third place and the big final. They are four games at the highest level on this continent. They celebrate it in a different city each season and this year it was in London: perfect for me. I have always dreamt of attending this event and I knew that 2013 would be the year from the moment I heard it was going to be in London. I bought my tickets on the first day they were available last November.

London and England in general are not very keen on basketball. The national championship is one of the weakest in Europe, specially among the bigger countries. Everyone was a bit expectant to see the response from locals to the celebration of one of the most important basketball events worldwide.The presence of the supporters of the four teams (Real Madrid, F.C. Barcelona, CSKA Moscow and Olympiakos Athens) was granted but it would not be enough to fill the great O2. Well, even though the level of the games was quite good and I enjoyed them a lot, the organisation of the event was a disaster from my point of view, a pity.

First of all, the Euroleague didn't manage to sell out the tickets. The facts that London is accessible practically only by plane from other countries and that it is not exactly a cheap destination are not helping much to attract the crowd from the continent. I have heard that they actually said tickets were sold out, but that's not true. It may be true that they managed to "get rid" of all the tickets (they gave them almost or completely for free in the last minute), but the venue was not full at all not even during the final. For the last game there were a lot of people, true, but it was still far from being at capacity. As suspected, English people in general and Londoners in particular don't like basketball and the organisation hasn't been able to sell the Final Four as an interesting product for them. I really, seriously, have my doubts about the venue being just half full during the first and third games. Some months ago they played in that very same scenario two NBA season games between Raptors and Nets. Tickets were sold out, the venue full, supporters didn't come from across the pond yet there was no room for a pea in there. Why?

The shows for entertaining (?) the audience between games, during breaks and time-outs deserve some special comments. With all due respects to the brave dancers, I expected quite a lot more than a high-school dance choreography. It was quite boring to just seeing the typical jugglers with basket balls that you can see on any court in Europe along with the classic kids doing break dance on the floor or whatever it is called while another one is beatboxing, something that you can see on any corner of any biggish city. I like both break-dance and beatboxing, I think they've got great merit because people learn them on the street, no schools. But during a Final Four, after the fifth time in four games it starts to be boring. Play some music for God's sake! Make people stand up, dance, have fun!! Is there not money enough to play 2Unlimited hits from 20 years ago? Fuck, I am not even asking for Madonna. Is there nothing else than a kid making noises on a microphone for the umpteenth time? The highest point of boredom arrived... I don't even remember if it was between the games on the third day or during the final's break. To be honest, I was playing with my Nintendo DS. There was a show which, again, was spectacular and amazing: a big group of people throwing some very light big balls in the air and to each other in a coordinated and very precise way. That's great if you go to see the Cirque du Soleil, but a tedious show if you are looking forward to the emotion of the continent basketball finals.

I don't know... It's been the first time I attend a Final Four and I hope it was not the last one. Maybe it is always like that? I have my serious doubts, but maybe I am being too critical with something that is just normal and you can't expect more from it... Not everything was bad, of course. The shows were ok but just the first few times (the boring thing was seeing the same again and again). The level of the games was quite good (they are usually slow games with strong defences with not many points, but that was not the case). The Greek supporters were a lot and a show on their own. Oh, and my favourite thing, absolutely, were the beards sported by the start of the champion team Olympiakos Vasilis Spanoulis and Pero Antic, hahaha!!