05 October, 2021
15 May, 2022

Competition System


The Basketball Champions League 2021-22 season will involve 52 teams, including many national champions out of the 30 European countries that will be represented in this season.

A minimum of 172 games will be played over the course of eight months of competition in this sixth 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 13, 2021.

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

The twenty-four (24) teams will compete in four (4) Qualification Round tournaments, and have been split into six pots (seeded and unseeded) for the purpose of the draw, based on the BCL Club Ranking and, when no Club Ranking is available, on the BCL Country Ranking.

According to the opt-out clause (see Article 4.3c and 16.2 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 4, 2021 and conclude on December 22, 2021.

The Regular Season phase will be composed by 32 clubs that are split in 8 groups of 4 clubs each, and will play in a round robin, home & away, system from October to December.
The first-placed teams in each group will qualify directly for the Round of 16 phase. The second and third-placed teams will face each other in a Play-In to qualify to the Round of 16.

Play-In

The Play-In phase will be composed of 16 clubs; the second and third-placed teams of the 8 Regular Season groups (see detailed explanations about the pairings here).
Teams will play a best-of-3 series over the month of January, with the home advantage to the second-placed teams.
The 8 Play-In winners will join the 8 Regular Season group winners, already qualified, in the Round of 16.

Round of 16

The Round of 16 phase will be composed by 16 clubs, the 8 first-placed teams coming from the Regular Season, and the 8 winners of the Play-In phase.
They will be split in 4 groups of 4 clubs each and play in a round robin, home & away, system from end of January to March.
The first two teams in each group will qualify for the Quarter-Finals.

Quarter-Finals

The Quarter-Finals phase will be composed by 8 clubs, the first two teams of each Round of 16 group.
Teams will play a best-of-3 series over the month of April, with the home advantage to the first-placed teams.
The 4 winners will qualify for the Final Four.

Final Four

Final Four tournament will conclude the season.
The 4 qualified teams will play over a weekend early May, with the Semi-Finals on Friday and the Finals on Sunday.

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