How European Teams Constrain Basketball Media | URBONUS Clip

And you know what's the worst part? That after our trip, when we're going to publish all the content we did here, Zvezda fans will still believe that we're paid by Partizan, because mostly the content we created is only Partizan-related. What an important topic that you are. And where we are heading to. What a nice transition to this topic. What do you think about that? Because I can speak for hours for the media, as I call it, unavailability in the Euroleague. And that we face here in Belgrade as well. Okay, I'll say it. Because you cannot say it. I'll say it. Okay. We have a problem. I will add later. We have a problem in Europe, in media, in trying to make this fundamental game of basketball, the one that we love so much in Europe, that is so not a circus and a show like the NBA is. We cannot make it into entertainment, and we cannot create content, because this is not the first time, not the second time. It's almost every trip that we go out with Donatas to make content, to talk to players, that we do not get... We get media unavailability. We get no certain answers who we can talk to. Usually, at the end of it, we just get, that guy is not available, that guy is not available, and that guy is not available. But we could give you the seventh or eighth person in the rotation who doesn't speak English, probably, or something like that. And how do you expect us to take that offer of the seventh or eighth man? And what can we do with that? We want to talk to the biggest names. We want to give the fans want to see the biggest names. And to get to know them better, because they're still, to this day, if you're coming out of this local region, local basketball team in the rest of Europe, they don't really know you, except from that, okay, you score that kind of amount of points, and that's it. And it's like Zvezda are the team that has 10 new players, 11 new players. And you are not giving their fans a chance to know them better, because, yeah, they have made those Media Day interviews. They probably have answered a lot of questions for Serbian TVs and stuff. But we are trying to make some more content like Donatas yesterday made with Alexey, watching his clips, and he's reacting. Donatas had so many ideas about how to talk with the players, not give them generic, let's say, I would say generic questions. He has those original ideas prepared. And then, this is my first trip. And what I see is basically 15 minutes of Zvezda players shooting left-handed three-pointers before they start a practice. But no, they can't give you answers to two questions because somebody decides for them that they can't do it. And I was like, this is a joke. I mean, it's ridiculous, really. Because probably those guys would do it. For 15 minutes. In some cases, right. But it's Shabazz after the game. If you lose a game, it's much harder to want to answer questions. But before the game, for 10 minutes, for five minutes, make everyone available, I don't know, for at least two questions. And if you want to grab a guy, it's not as hard to give five minutes of your time before a practice where some players will still be doing those interviews for the TV, for the right holders, for the blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And here now it's just the teams or the media officers, whatever, they're deciding, no, you can't do it because it's pressure. It's the Derby. This guy played in the NBA. This guy has been everywhere. And it's the pressure of the Derby. What are you talking? Now you ask me what to answer to the questions. No, but to be honest, when the approach is, would you like to give an interview, to have an interview tomorrow, and not when could you have an interview or we have to do this interview, then this is the problem. When the question is, would you like to, what's the easiest answer to say? Nah, I'm good. So until we get to a point where the league itself is starting to promote the idea of let's give the media as much availability as possible and enforce that in one way or another. And this will not be the most popular decision for the players, let's say, or the coaches, because it's easier not to talk to the media. It's easier not to be in the spotlight. But until we get to that point where the league, or I don't know what needs to change, maybe you have a better option. But once we, until we get there, I think we won't be able to fulfill the full potential of these trips because we're here for what? Four days, five days almost. We have time to talk to anyone, but we just don't get the chance. So what can we do? You know, we're doing the best that we can with the resources available. Exactly. So, yeah. And I'm so happy that you expanded this whole situation, this whole problem, because it's really crazy. The effort that we put, you know, I've sent all the requests for Partizan and Zvezda players. From both teams, I had three requests for Partizan. It was Zeljko, Aleksa Vravic, which we did. I'm really thankful for both Aleksa and Ivan, the press officer of Partizan. Kevin Punter is also coming to our new show film session tomorrow. I'm also very thankful to Kevin Punter for his time. And, you know, we had a similar idea with Zvezda players. Yes, we got Rokas Gedraitis. And I think we did a cool Lithuanian podcast. And yeah, it's unfortunately only for Lithuanian audience, but sorry, you know, he rarely speaks to Lithuanians and we just wanted to, let's say, to get the best out of him in the Lithuanian podcast, you know, for Lithuanian community. But then we also had this great idea of a film session show with Milos Stavdosic to speak more about his greatness reading the game, about his passing IQ. It was only basketball conversation that we were expecting to have, showing him some highlights and just going through those plays, how he was reading those situations. And then another idea was Shabaz Napier. You know, he's actually one of the biggest names in Europe that we have. He has a lot of NBA fans and the idea was simple. And I actually, regarding every request, I wrote kind of, you know, a script and explanation why we want him, how we're gonna put him on our show and why it's beneficial for him or for the club. Because at the end of the day, the reach that we have, the views, the exposure, it also promotes EuroLeague. It promotes basketball and it promotes those clubs. And also for these clubs, it's an opportunity, you know, to also promote their sponsors. I mean, it's beneficial for everybody. So I've sent those scripts, basically, of the content we're going to make. And my idea with Shabaz was clear. There was this viral video at the opening night of the EuroLeague season against Villarbono as well. There was the short clip that I think that we made when Zvezda fans were singing that loud that you couldn't hear the EuroLeague anthem. And the first person on that clip was Shabaz Napier. And that clip had almost 12 million views. And I thought, you know, we have this situation, we have Shabaz, who is still kind of a newcomer in Europe. He didn't play a full season on one team here. And I would like to ask him two simple questions. How did you feel during that situation? And you couldn't believe how many people were quoting that video and, you know, writing, oh, was that Shabaz Napier? Oh, he's in Europe? Wow. You know, there are a lot of Shabaz Napier fans. And I was just, I wanted him to, you know, send message to NBA fans. How is he doing? Is he happy what he's doing right now? What kind of mission he's on? I mean, I think it's, you know, it's good content for the player, for the club and for the competition for the EuroLeague. And Shabaz Napier, unfortunately, he didn't find the right time after the game. He found this shootaround also very important, not to answer at least two questions. And I'm not even talking about the initial idea to have him for 10 minutes in one-on-one interview. And it's a complex of problems because, okay, Shabaz or any other player might be not in a mood to talk. But then there's a press officer. And the problem is that here in Europe, in most countries, and I have to emphasize that there are a lot of great media officers, but most of them, they try to protect their team too much instead of thinking how I should promote my team. Now their mindset is, how I shouldn't let this guy to talk with these journalists instead of which guy I should offer to them to do the best content, what ideas I could give them, to make the greatest interview. Or I think even better option is this. We are not asking for a, okay, maybe we are asking for some sit-down interviews, but that we even adapt to. We can come there with all of our equipment, make a little set in the practice gym, whatever, 10 minutes or whatever it is. We don't care about some very specific, I don't know, that we need to take that player out somewhere and put them in a different studio. We're not asking that much, right? And the best thing would be the example you saw in the World Cup, Team USA basketball. You have full availability of anyone you can come, approach, do that. And if we could just do that, give us 15 minutes for all the media to approach anyone and we'll do all the content that we need, no problem. And it wouldn't hurt any of them doing that. And man, I don't want to hear any of this ---- like, oh, it's a big game. Oh, it's a big pressure. Oh, it's been a busy week. Exactly. Team USA practice, they get the highest pressure before the competition. They have the highest pressure of losing one game and being losers in front of many people's eyes. They're, let's say, playing in the quarterfinals. They're playing in the semifinals. They're playing for the bronze medal game. The rule was the same. In every practice, on every practice day, 20-minute availability of anybody. And you can talk to Anton Edwards, you can talk to Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves is answering the same questions for four times and he's okay with that. You can talk to assistant coaches, the director of Team USA program. Donatas needs a drink, I can tell. And there are no problems. There's no bullshit reporting or something. You know, it's not like journalists using those opportunities to harm players, to harm teams or whatsoever. For some reason, a lot of C, many C journalists as some kind of enemies. But, you know, yeah, in some situations, you know, bad reporting happens. Yeah, some situations they have their own agenda. But, you know, at the same time, if I'm a media officer, okay, you can do something like, you know, a track record of this media company. If you see some bad reporting all the time, creating narratives about me in a negative way. Yeah, I wouldn't be so open. At the same time, if anybody followed our trips, did we try to put anybody under the bus? Did we try to put them in some negative way? I don't think so. I think that we actually helped many of the players, the coaches or executives to be heard or, you know, to get way better picture of them, you know, to introduce them to European basketball community and have this, you know, impression. Oh, I didn't think that, I didn't think that that guy was that cool, you know. I think just the final thought, I think to finish on this question, because we've been on it. Great question by Stefan Stamanish, really. I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, I'm looking and it's like 20 before one. A.M. and I'm like, how long could we go on talking about this? We could probably do a whole different podcast for it. For sure. And I believe this should go on a public podcast. But we might keep it for the public podcast. I was just gonna say, last thing on this, maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Before us, before basketnews.com, how many international English, you know, there was, you know, euro hoops, whatever. But we are doing different kind of content that we try to reach, you know, on all the platforms. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Teams are not open to this because it's been only a few years that we're in this business. And hopefully with some more years of us doing what we're doing, we'll get to a point where we'll get there. I just, I'm just saying this is new, not just for us, but for them too. I don't know, man. No, you don't agree. I don't agree. I don't know, man. Okay, okay. Just my last thoughts. Just my last two thoughts, I think. I guess questions are going. The problem, I think that how we could... Okay, the first thing is that, yes, sometimes we're reaching. Sometimes we're wrong. Sometimes we do mistakes. And sometimes we do bad reporting or something. But, you know, there's no perfect media outlet and we don't do it intentionally. And we're always open. If we do something wrong, you can always reach us out and to address those issues. We had plenty of conversations where we did something wrong and we later admitted. Internally, with clubs, with players, we also got players who approached us to explain what they don't like with us. And that's okay. We also try to be better. We're not perfect. We try to improve. And at the end of the day, our mission is just to help the European basketball product to get better, to be more recognized, to be more popular. Because at the end of the day, all we want... It sounds crazy. All we want is to get more money. But what I'm talking about, we want European basketball to be profitable. No, no. All we want is to get more money. This is where we should end it. Let's end this way. Yeah, we want more money. And we're taking money in cash and dinars. No, but I mean, we want to make European basketball more profitable. We don't move a finger to make it more profitable. And nowadays, it starts from the conversation, from sparking that conversation, from being noticed on social media, on media outlets, and especially internationally. Because I think that almost all those teams, they already hit their ceiling in local markets. But the EuroLeague's problem and EuroLeague's challenge is to get those local teams out of their markets to another markets to be introduced. And let's say to have foreign fans fell in love with those teams and have that desire to watch them in your free time when your local team that you support is not playing. Oh, I like this team a lot. So I want to put that game on my screen. So, yeah. And EuroLeague should push this idea to those teams. They should set something, some guidebook, rule book. I don't know, they have to push and maybe even force them to be more open, to be more creative, how to be more open to some media outlets. Then this change has to start with the media officers. Then coaches shouldn't be media officers no more. Because, sorry, but the coaches are one of the worst promoters of the game. Because they want to control everything. And unfortunately, it doesn't help to promote the game. And we hear this idea of EuroLeague should be the players league more and more. And even from the EuroLeague. And the change also has to start even from small details like this. Because I hate hearing behind the scenes stories that this coach controls who can do an interview one-on-one, who is not available, who is available when it's right time to speak. Because believe me, they have no clue about communications. They have no clue about promotion marketing because they're best at coaching. So let them coach, let them coach. Let them do their thing. Let them cook. Yeah, let them cook.