Competition System

The Basketball Champions League 2020-21 season will involve 44 teams, including many national champions out of the 46 European countries that have been invited.

A total of 176 games will be played over the course of eight months of competition in this fifth season of the Basketball Champions League.

Games will be played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in order to safeguard national leagues’ schedules, and national team windows are integrated (and protected) in the calendar.

Thirty-two (32) teams will play in the Regular Season of the Basketball Champions League. Twenty-eight (28) of those teams will be directly qualified for the Regular Season (based on sporting criteria), and four (4) teams will be joining after the Qualification Rounds.

Qualification Rounds

The competition will start on September 22, 2020.

Four (4) teams will qualify for the Regular Season from the Qualification Rounds. 

The 16 teams involved will face each other in two elimination rounds played in a Semi-Finals/Final format. 

According to the opt-out clause (see Article 4.3c and 16.1 of the Regulations). number of non-qualified teams will then participate in the FIBA Europe Cup.

Regular Season

The Regular Season will tip off on October 20, 2020 and conclude on January 27, 2021.

The 32 teams competing in the Regular Season will be divided into eight (8) groups of four (4) teams. Each team in the group will play all others home and away. The first two teams of each Regular Season group will qualify for the Play-Offs.

Play-Offs

Sixteen (16) teams advance to the Play-Offs phase, consisting of a new group format of four groups with four teams each. These will be formed with the top two (2) teams from each Regular Season group.

A Play-Offs Draw will determine the new four groups of four teams (each group will have respectively 2 teams having finished 1st and 2 teams having finished 2nd of their Regular Season group) that will play home and away games over the month of March. No country protection, only group protection will apply during the Draw.

Clubs will play six games each in a round robin system (three games home, three away), with the first two teams in each group qualifying for a Final 8 tournament that will conclude the 2020-21 season.

The Play-Offs will start on March 2-3, 2021.

More details on the Play-Offs phase are available in the Article 18 of the Regulations. 

Final Eight

The Final Eight will take place on the first week of May 2021. The location will be determined after completion of the Play-Offs.
The final event will be hosted in one of the eight qualified club's arena.

More details on the Final Eight are available in the Article 19 of the Regulations.