Greece - Lockout Delayed Start of 2011 Greek Regular Season

(Image - Greek Basketball League logo)

Waiting to tip in Greece - One by one, international leagues across the globe began to start regular season play in early October. Two more leagues of interest were slated to open the season during the mid-month weekend of Oct. 14.-16. The A1 Greek League (Jon Diebler) & the Israeli Premier League (Ron Lewis). Everything went according to plan in Israel, but arenas were empty in Greece due to a lockout dispute that ended up postponing opening season play.

From George Georgakopoulos of ekathimerini.com

Greek Lockout in Effect

Basketball clubs decided on October 11 to postpone the start of the league, originally planned for the weekend of October 15-16, due to the lack of a television contract, which constitutes the main source of revenues for the cash-strapped teams.

ESAKE, the league's organizer, decided by majority (seven votes to four) to put off the opening round of games until a TV channel agrees to buy the rights of all teams as a package, as opposed to having separate deals only for the most popular teams.

State broadcaster ERT has already agreed on terms with giants Panathinaikos and Olympiakos, who voted against this Greek version of a lockout.

Now the league's other clubs, led by PAOK, Aris and Panionios, are putting pressure on ERT to buy their rights, too, to render the league viable.

The next possible date for the league's tipoff is October 22.(link)

This latest issue is just one dispute in what has been a series of tumultuous relations between league clubs, the players union and the league federation. Let's hope this gets settled as we are really eagered to see how Jon Diebler & Panionios perform in opening weeks.