The BCL is BACK! Everything you need to know about the Basketball Champions League

The Basketball Champions League (BCL) is the highest-level domestic European competition organized by FIBA.  

For basketball fans looking to stream the Basketball Champions League, Courtside 1891 will be streaming every BCL game, live and on-demand. As the home of FIBA live streaming for the 2023/24 domestic basketball season, register with Courtside 1891 by signing up via the Courtside 1891 website. To watch on the go, download the Courtside 1891 app, available on the App Store and Google Play.

What is the Basketball Champions League?

• → The top placed teams from every national league (and domestic cup) within the FIBA code of competitions
• → The 2023/24 season tips off with qualifying rounds, with 25 Clubs battling it out for 3 Basketball Champions League regular season spots
• → A group phased regular season involving 32 teams, comprising the best performing national league Club sides and wild card invitees
• → The regular season stage has eight groups of four teams. Each team plays six times during the Group Phase. The top ranked teams play a second Group Phase in the Round of 16
• → The top performing teams advance to a best-of-three Quarter-Final knockout round, followed by a Final Four weekend to crown the BCL champion

When is the Basketball Champions League held?

The BCL will take place between September 2023 and May 2024.

The BCL Qualifiers start with a pre-qualifying game between Fribourg Olympic (Switzerland) and Caledonia Gladiators (Great Britain) on Sunday 24 September at a neutral venue in Turkey.

The Qualification Rounds commence a day later on Monday 25 September and conclude on Sunday 1 October. 

The BCL regular season takes place between 17 October and 20 December 2023. 

The dates of the Basketball Champions League Knockout Rounds are still tbc, but expect them to start in early January 2024 and build towards a Final Four weekend in May 2024.   

What times are the Basketball Champions League games on?

Games take place in the evenings, between 6pm and 9pm locally. Regular season games take place on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. 

Where to Stream  the Basketball Champions League  

As the home of FIBA live streaming, Courtside 1891 has end-to-end coverage of the FIBA Basketball Champions League games, live and on-demand. Each competing Club is subject to local market rights restrictions where official FIBA broadcast partners have exclusivity. Check out our where to watch page for the latest information.

As well as the European BCL live streams, fans of South American basketball can look forward to the return of the Basketball Champions League Americas on Courtside 1891. The continent’s premier Club tournament sees 12 teams from seven nations compete from 13 December 2023 through to the Final in April 2024. 

Fans can watch all this high-level action across multiple devices. So don’t forget to download the app for free via the App Store for Apple devices and Google Play for Android smartphones. 

Who competed in the BCL Final Four last season?

The Basketball Champions League Final Four takes place in one arena over the last weekend of the season, with one of the four competing teams hosting the extravaganza. The 2022/23 BCL Final Four included hosts Unicaja from Malaga, fellow Spanish outfit, Lenovo Tenerife, Israel outfit Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem, and Telekom Baskets Bonn from Germany. 

Rewatch the full games from the 2022/23 Final Four action for FREE here: 

Who won in the Basketball Champions League last season? 

2022/23 BCL Champions - Telekom Baskets Bonn (Germany)

After losing their opening BCL game of the 22/23 season, not many expected Bonn to be the last team standing when the confetti came down. They immediately bounced back from that opening day defeat, winning their remaining five Regular Season games to top their group. 

They then made light work of their Round of 16 opponents, going 6-0, entering the knockout phase with the best competition record and confidence brimming. 

Telekom Baskets Bonn were the understandably the firm favorites heading into their Quarter-Final showdown with Strasbourg SIG in a best of three series. But it was the team of France who pulled off a shock road win, with Marcus Keene hitting an incredible deep 3 with 12 seconds left to hand Bonn only their second defeat of the campaign, and put them on the brink of elimination. Bonn rallied, winning by 10 across the border, before seeing out the decider back home, 83-77. 

The Final Four was set and both games delivered high-drama in Malaga, with both Semi-Finals coming down to one possession games. Hapoel defeated defending champs Tenerife 69-68, while Bonn edged past Malaga 69-67 to the disappointment of the partisan home crowd. 

Tournament MVP, T.J. Shorts II, saved his best performance of the season for the biggest stage, scoring 29 points in a game where Hapoel Jerusalem were only able to take the lead for one possession. Bonn went on to win the game, 77-70 to bring the curtain down on the seventh season of the Basketball Champions League. 

Watch a short documentary on the incredibly passionate Hapoel Jerusalem fans below: 

Humans of BCL - Jerusalem

H2) Which teams are competing in the 2023/24 Basketball Champions Leagues season?

 

Team Name	Domestic League	Country of Origin
AEK	Basket League (6th) [Wild Card]	Greece
Bertram Derthona	Lega Basket Serie A (3rd)	Italy
Bursaspor İnfo Yatırım	Basketbol Süper Ligi (5th)	Türkiye
Darüşşafaka Lassa	Basketbol Süper Ligi (6th)	Türkiye
Dinamo Sassari	Lega Basket Serie A (4th)	Italy
EWE Baskets Oldenburg	Basketball Bundesliga (6th)	Germany
Falco Szombathely	Nemzeti Bajnokság I/A (1st)	Hungary
Filou Oostende	BNXT League (1st)	Belgium
Galatasaray Nef	Basketbol Süper Ligi (8th)	Türkiye
Hapoel Jerusalem	Israeli Basketball Premier League (3rd)	Israel
Hapoel Holon	Israeli Basketball Premier League (4th)	Israel
Igokea	Basketball Championship of BIH (1st)	Bosnia and Herzegovina
JDA Dijon	Pro A (5th)	France
King Szczecin	Polish Basketball League (1st)	Poland
Le Mans Sarthe	Pro A (6th)	France
Lenovo Tenerife	ACB Liga Endesa (6th)	Spain
MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg	Basketball Bundesliga (4th)	Germany
Opava	National Basketball League (1st)	Czech Republic
PAOK	Basket League (4th)	Greece
Peristeri bwin	Basket League (3rd)	Greece
Pınar Karşıyaka	Basketbol Süper Ligi (2nd)	Türkiye
Promitheas	Basket League (5th) [Wild Card]	Greece
Rio Breogan	ACB Liga Endesa (10th)	Spain
Rytas	Lietuvos Krepšinio Lyga (2nd)	Lithuania
Telekom Baskets Bonn	Basketball Bundesliga (2nd)	Germany
Tofaş	Basketbol Süper Ligi (7th)	Türkiye
UCAM Murcia	ACB Liga Endesa (9th)	Spain
Unicaja	ACB Liga Endesa (3rd)	Spain
VEF Rīga	Latvian–Estonian Basketball League (1st)	Latvia
Cholet Basket	Pro A (7th)	France
SIG Strasbourg	Pro A (8th)	France
SL Benfica	Liga Portuguesa de Basquetebol (1st)	Portugal

 

History of the Basketball Champions League

The Basketball Champions League, commonly referred to as the BCL, was formed in March 2016 within the FIBA Europe Confederation. 2023/24 will be the eight season of the competition that takes place annually, from September to May alongside each domestic league season. 

Spanish teams have dominated the competition to date, winning the title four of our seven times. 11 of the 28 Final Four teams play in the ACB, or Liga Endesa as it is now known for sponsorship purposes. 

Both Tenerife (Canarias) and San Pablo Burgos have won the competition twice. Alongside Germany’s Telekom Basket Bonn, AEK from Greece and Virtus Segafredo Bologna from Italy have also won the competition.

A competition based on performance merit at a domestic level, a grand total of 98 teams from 28 national associations have featured in the BCL since it started (not including the 23/24 season qualifiers). 

Enjoy short highlights of the 2022/23 BCL Final between Bonn and Jerusalem below:

Telekom Baskets Bonn v Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem