LKL

Greek basketball team ownership: a “job” only for… few!

Greek basketball is in a very difficult year. Crisis has hit sports as well and basketball is no exception to that. This year’s championship is the poorest one for years. Most teams have financial problems, players come and go, others because they weren’t good enough to play here (but the teams didn’t have enough money for a better one when they were “buying”), others because no one… paid them.

Greek basketball never had big investors and a good marketing plan to help it develop. It was always up to some rich guys that loved basketball and wanted to give their money for, just because they had… more than enough! No one makes money out of basketball in Greece, if you want to be a chairman for a Greek team, be prepared to dive your hand deep into your money pocket!

Of course there are very few teams that have rich people who want to lose money doing their hobbies. The last 20 years that basketball all around the world has become so professional and a great amount of money is needed in order to keep a team alive and going, only two Greek teams have had the luxury of a rich owner that is willing to pay huge amounts of money out of his own pockets just to see his team winning.

I am talking about Olympiacos and Panathinaikos. As for all the others, they have had good and bad times, good and bad years, especially the ones with the biggest fan base, like Aris, PAOK and AEK. All the rest mostly have… bad years, with the exception of very few.

The poor fate of Greek teams

Before we go to the two Titans, let’s have a few words about the other teams. Maroussi was lucky enough to be owned by a Greek constructive firm led by B. Vovos and that helped it have 6-7 very healthy years during the last decade. But that seems to be over now, since Vovos left (actually he paid for them to be part of this year’s championship, even though he did leave the team). Maroussi is unlucky to be stated at the same part of Athens as Panathinaikos, so it has very few fans.

Panellinios is a peculiar example, as it is still owned by M. Kyriakou, a Greek shipping magnate and businessman. Kyriakou owns the multimedia company Antenna Group (that includes Heaven Music), has the ownership of two oil companies (Bacoil International and Athenian Oil Trading Inc.) and the ownership of a shipping company (Athenian Sea Carriers Ltd.) which is stated in Singapore. He also owns mills in the USA and stakes of Singapore Airlines, being himself the president of the Aegean Foundation. He also is president of the Greek Olympic Committee. Panellinios is a healthy basketball team, but its main problem is that it has no real fanbase. In the center of Athens till this year, Panellinios was always at the shadow of Panathinaikos, AEK and Olympiacos. This year they tried to change that, moving the team to Lamia, a city around 200km outside of Athens, but the experiment doesn’t seem to be working so far in terms of attendance. Kyriakou kept Panellinios financially healthy but was never willing to follow other chairmen in a bidding war over good players, so Panellinios is a mediocre Greek team over the last 20 years.

Aris and PAOK are the two teams of North Greece with the biggest fanbase (it is actually believed that PAOK comes second in general in Greece behind Olympiacos). But these two teams almost never had an investor that was willing to pay to keep them among the top teams of the country. That led to some very good years, but also to very little stability, huge financial problems and really awful seasons (like the ones Aris had at the beginning of bicentennial or the one PAOK had two seasons ago).

AEK’s example is similar. But AEK had a great investor, Yannis Filippou. Filippou has a lot of money, but thought he could earn from basketball, or that he wouldn’t lose money. After a couple of seasons that he saw this wasn’t going to be the case, he decided to… not pay. So AEK is currently run by its beloved fans and people with no financial reputation, which leads to unbelievable economical problems.

One team that is in a good financial state in Greece is Kolossos Rhodes. The team has investors from the island that keep it safe and healthy, but also seems to know its boundaries. Kolossos won participation to this year’s Eurocup last season, but the team folded, because they thought it would be hard for them to stay financially healthy and responsible while building a new arena for the team. In general it’s a team with good fans and atmosphere, a healthy team, a jewel for our championship that grows slowly and steadily each year.

Greek basketball titans and oligarchs

And that leads us to the main theme of our article. Only two teams were lucky enough the last 20 years to have a chairman willing to pay anything to keep them on top. Greek basketball is really alive because of three families: Kokkalis, Angelopoulos and Yannakopoulos. The first two of Olympiacos and the last of Panathinaikos.

Kokkalis took control of Olympiacos in 1991 and he was the reason for the rebirth of the team. He led the team to 5 consecutive championships, 2 Greek Cup titles (and one more in 2002), 4 Euroleague final fours with one Euroleague crown, leading FIBA to select Olympiacos as the best team of Europe in the 90s. Players like Eddie Johnson, Roy Tarpley, Walter Berry, Zarko Paspalj, David Rivers, Dino Radja, Sasha Volkov, Milan Tomic, Dragan Tarlac, Arturas Karnisovas, Johnny Rogers, Arijan Komazec, Fabricio Oberto, Blue Edwards, Giorgos Sigalas, Pangiotis Fasoulas, Dimitris Papanikolaou, and many more played for Olympiacos during the golden years of Kokkalis.

Kokkalis used to spend huge amounts of money for Olympiacos, buying the best players around, so as to build an amazing team. Where did it come from? Well, Kokkalis has been a member of Forbes 500 list (the list of the world’s 500 richest people). Do I need to say more? He is Chairman, CEO and majority shareholder of Intracom Holdings, one of the largest multinational technology groups in South-Eastern Europe, and also the Chairman and majority shareholder of Intralot S.A., which is the world’s leading gaming technology supplier and lottery licensed operator. The Greek Colossus has one vice: Olympiacos.

Kokkalis was the kind of chairman that would do anything for his team. He was a fan-first-chairman, loved by Olympiacos’s most radical fans. He loves Olympiacos, he loves football and he also wanted to build an empire in basketball. When Panathinaikos started winning Kokkalis put basketball aside and kept his focus on football. That led to some really mediocre seasons for Olympiacos B.C., seasons that ended with the coming of Angelopoulos brothers.

Before we talk about the new era of Olympiacos, I want to keep a chronological order of things. I let Olympiacos to the side and turn to Panathinaikos, the other Greek Titan in basketball, since the early 90s. Giannakopoulos brothers, Pavlos and Thannasis, took control of the team in 1987.

They remain at the helm of the team, still owning Panathinaikos, having spent tens of millions of euros for the team. The two brothers are like Kokkalis: fans-first-chairmen. They love Panathinaikos to an amazing extent, they literally get sick when the team loses (Thannasis had heart problems and doctor had recommended not to watch crucial games of the team a couple of years ago!) and they are willing to do anything in order for Panathinaikos to keep winning. That has led to some really extreme incidents (like the one Thannasis slapped a Greek referee during a game, or when he threw money to Arteaga’s feet after the final four in Berlin saying he was sold!). While Thannasis is nicknamed “Hurricane” because he has no control of himself when he gets mad for his team and is unstoppable, Pavlos is the calm power of Panathinaikos. Together they have led the team to its best years.

They are co-owners of pharmaceutical corporation Vianex, which was founded in 1924 by their father as a small local import and distributor. Vianex currently manufactures and markets, in many countries, a variety of products in collaboration with other huge firms. The personal fortune of the two brothers is estimated to be almost a billion euros combined, while Vianex has a product turnover that exceeds 200 million euros each year.

They took control in 1987 and because of (Aris and PAOK at first and then) Kokkalis and Olympiacos they had to wait 11 years to win a Greek championship. In the meantime they won a Euroleague (1996) and participated in 2 more final fours. Both of them were and still are willing to pay anything to get any player and they have proved it in many occasions.

Since 1998 (they won their first Greek championship that season) Panathinaikos has won 12 Greek Championship titles in 13 years. Since 1987 the team has won 8 Greek Cup titles, 5 Euroleague titles, playing in a total of 9 final-fours since 1994 (and also in a Suproleague final). Panathinaikos is currently widely regarded as the most successful team in Greek basketball history.

The two brothers brought to the team players as Dominique Wilkins, Byron Scott, Nikos Galis, Panagiotis Giannakis, Sasha Volkov, Dino Radja, Michael Koch, John Salley, Fannis Christodoulou, Fragiskos Alvertis, Nikos Ekonomou, Stojko Vrankovic,, Arijan Komazec, Hugo Sconochini, Marcelo Nicola, Dejan Bodiroga, Johhny Rogers, Ibrahim Kutluay, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Lazaros Papadopoulos, Dimitris Diamantidis, Vassilis Spanoulis and many more.

After Panathinaikos started winning and Kokkalis decided to put more focus (and money of course) to football, Olympiacos had many mediocre seasons, from 2000 to 2006. During the 2004-05 season Angelopoulos brothers took over at the helm of Olympiacos. Panagiotis and Giorgos Angelopoulos took over first as vice presidents and after a couple of years they became chairmen and owners of the teams, taking over the helm from Kokkalis.

They are the reason for the rebirth of Olympiacos. Under their presidency Olympiacos won a title (Greek Cup) after 8 years (in 2010) and reached 2 consecutive final fours, being on the road for a third one.

They brought to the team players as Arvydas Macijauskas, Lynn Greer, Josh Childress, Nikola Vujcic, Linas Kleiza, Milos Teodosic, Vassilis Spanoulis, Theo Papaloukas, and many more. You probably know that they, too, are willing to pay anything to bring a star to the team, as they did with Macijauskas, Childress, Kleiza, Papaloukas and Spanoulis (whom they took from Panathinaikos).

They love basketball (they used to attend NBA finals and all-star games for many years before they took over Olympiacos, and they also… pay the expenses of a whole indoors arena that is used by semi-pro teams, just so they can hit some hoops there in their free time) and they love Olympiacos. They are the… new generation of Greek chairmen in Greek sports and they seem to be here to stay. They are shipping and steel magnates, with a combined estimated fortune of more than 3 billion dollars!

As you can easily derive from the above, there is only one reason to become a team owner in Greece: love for the game and for a team. Very rich people that love their teams and have the financial status to buy them are the most successful Greek owners. They are doing their… hobby, no matter how expensive this seems to the rest of us. And they are the main reason Greek basketball stays at the foreground.

Of course they have made many mistakes, biggest of which, I think, is the fact that they weren’t interested to communicate and cooperate so as to help Greek basketball develop as a whole and build foundations that would help it be healthy and evolve. But, even with their flaws and imperfections, we have to admit that they are the force that keeps our professional basketball alive to this day.

P.S.: In the picture (left to right): Panagiotis Angelopoulos, Sokratis Kokkalis, Pavlos Giannakopoulos.

Nikos Kousoulis