Itoudis Calls for Euroleague Expansion to 30 Teams: From Personal Dream to European Basketball's Future

If someone asked me after 15 years of following European basketball what keeps me up at night most, the answer isn't a buzzer-beater three-pointer or a clutch free throw. It's whether the continent's top-tier club competition is big enough to hold everything it deserves to be. This week, Dimitris Itoudis — a Euroleague championship coach — answered that question with an unapologetic statement: he wants the league to expand to 30 teams with a full conference and playoff structure. That's not just a dream. That's a roadmap. Euroleague currently operates with 20 teams, playing a double round-robin with only eight making the playoffs. This model has stood for many seasons, but according to Itoudis, it's leaving too much value off the court. "The league is moving in the right direction — 24 to 26 teams is a stepping stone, then 30," he said in a recent interview. "I hope I'm alive and well to witness this for at least another ten years." That statement reflects not just personal belief but a reality anyone closely tracking Euroleague's trajectory recognizes: the competition has outgrown its original framework. Let's be direct: 20 teams in a competition of European caliber is underrepresented. When the NBA operates with 30 teams split into two conferences, when top domestic leagues like Liga ACB or the Bundesliga regularly field more than 18 competitive teams, Euroleague's 20 slots create too narrow a door for Europe's basketball ecosystem. This isn't complaint. It's data-driven observation. Itoudis's argument rests on three pillars. First, expansion means financial stability. More teams mean more cities, more markets, more broadcasting and ticket revenue. In a context where many European clubs still struggle with budget pressures — a reality I've witnessed through dozens of financial analyses throughout my career — growth in league scale is a direct economic driver. Second, expansion creates a larger employment ecosystem: more players, more coaches, more referees. These aren't abstract numbers. They're real livelihoods for thousands of people in the industry. Third — and this is where I find Itoudis hitting closest to the core — he wants the season to end with playoffs, not a single final game. "Playoffs are the pinnacle of basketball," he said. "I hope the European season concludes with a structured playoff system, not a single match that decides everything." This sounds obvious to an American fan, but for European basketball — where knockout tradition only appears in some domestic leagues — this is a genuine debate about competitive identity. Beyond the three main pillars, a notable detail in Itoudis's statement is his hope to bring Russian teams back to Euroleague. This is sensitive: many Russian clubs were excluded from European competitions since 2026 due to international sanctions. A coach of Itoudis's stature openly advocating for their return shows his expansion vision isn't bounded by geopolitics but by pure competitive quality. Whether this view gains consensus or not, it demonstrates he's thinking at the league-structure level, not the club level. Another significant signal comes from FIBA. The International Basketball Federation has officially cleared the path for players, athletes, and referees to participate in Euroleague — a legal stepping stone opening the door to club-level participation. This isn't a minor detail. In European basketball history, the relationship between FIBA and Euroleague — two organizations that have clashed for power many times — has never been smooth. FIBA's "green light" for individuals is the clearest sign in years that both parties are seeking balance rather than direct confrontation. But this is where I must say what many don't want to hear. Euro 2026 taught me a lesson: hot takes don't need to be right, just timely. And lessons from the 2026 World Cup — when I mispronounced Modric and nearly lost all credibility — taught me that ambition without an implementation roadmap is just theory. Itoudis has a clear vision, but the challenge lies elsewhere. First, will the current 20 teams accept expansion? This isn't a small question. Expanding from 20 to 30 teams means diluting quality — or at least the perception of quality — that current teams have built their brands on. A team like Olympiacos or Maccabi Tel Aviv doesn't want to share the stage with newcomers only recently meeting the standard. Second, the conference and playoff structure Itoudis dreams of requires an even more demanding schedule. The current Euroleague season is already grueling. More games could push players into overload, especially when they're also competing for their national teams. Third — and this is the biggest blind spot in the entire discussion — is the talent pipeline question. Euroleague currently relies significantly on American players and development leagues like the G League to fill rosters. Expanding to 30 teams without a corresponding youth development system turns the dream into fiercer recruitment competition, driving costs up and creating larger gaps between rich and poor clubs. Big club academies are talent stockpiles, but fewer than 10% actually give young players a path to the first team. That's a number I've tracked for years, and it won't change simply because there are 10 more Euroleague slots. However, I'm not writing this to dismiss Itoudis's vision. I'm writing it because vision without an implementation plan is just a pretty speech. And I've seen too many pretty speeches in sports turn into millions of negative comments when reality catches up with ambition. What I really want to see — and this is why I still sit here writing these lines at 2 AM after a long game — is a Euroleague large enough to contain everything European basketball can produce. Thirty teams may sound fanciful to the cautious, but it's also a number that 20 years ago, Euroleague itself would have called impossible when it was just an eight-team tournament. Every major expansion in sports history started with someone daring to say "20 is not enough." The issue is who will turn that statement into action, and whether that action preserves the quality fans have come to expect. That's a question no interview can answer — not Itoudis, not FIBA, not anyone with influence. But the very fact that the question is being asked publicly — from the mouth of a champion — is progress. The NBA Bubble 2026 had no fans. I only had myself to listen to. And what I hear from Itoudis's statement isn't complacency. It's the call of someone who has seen the summit and wants to build more stairs so others can climb too.