The broadcast of the docu-drama series “Moni’s Secrets”, this week on Channel 12, about the life, entanglements and death of Maccabi Tel’s legendary basketball manager, Moni Panan, reminded us how fragile Maccabi Tel’s management-economic model is like the victory it achieved On Tuesday in Ouaka in Athens on Panathinaikos.
Because this victory – which was followed by a kind of defeat born in one attack in which the Greeks scored 8 points – may be seen at the end of the season as a Pyrrhic victory. Maccabi will advance to the Final Four and win the championship in Israel, even though Hapoel Tel Aviv faced a fine offensive monster at the beginning of the season.
After all, the most impressive thing that Maccabi Tel Aviv did this season in the EuroLeague was to reach the quarterfinals, even though it hosted Yad Eliyahu only once in front of its audience and the other times in the legendary Pioneer Stadium in Belgrade where it won its first European Cup. And precisely because of this reason Maccabi Tel Aviv stands A in the coming months on chicken’s knees, in what could threaten not only its control of Israeli basketball, but its very future.
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Maccabi Tel Aviv is perhaps the only sports team in the world whose budget – between 20 and 23 million euros per season – is based for the most part on income from the sale of subscriptions. This is something like 50-55 percent of the club’s budget. Maccabi Tel Aviv sells close to 10,000 subscriptions per year, at significantly higher prices than anything else sold in football because with this subscription it allows entry into the Euroleague, the league and sometimes the playoffs.
Since this season the subscribers were harmed by the Euroleague management’s decision to prevent Maccabi Tel Aviv from hosting Yad Eliyahu because of the war, indignation was created among the subscribers and some kind of compensation plan was required that both parties could meet. There was also an aspiration for a commitment from the client to a subscription for the next season, which did not stand the test of reality.
Maccabi offered a 15 percent immediate refund of the subscription price and a discount of 12.5 percent of the subscription price in the next season and the season after that, in case of a commitment to purchase a subscription. This is an aggregate of at most 40 percent damage from the revenue from the sale of subscriptions this year, in this case it is a damage of approximately 20 million shekels when the state has committed to compensation for the war damages of 12 million shekels.
Apparently, 8 million shekels – and not even that – is not an exception that cannot be met, but the members of the Maccabi Tel Aviv board of directors are not usually required to take money out of their pockets, but only to serve as a financial backstop for any flow problem. The management structure of Maccabi Tel Aviv leaves a way The old members included control over what was going on, because if it wasn’t for this control, Maccabi Tel Aviv wouldn’t exist, and CSKA wouldn’t eat it.
But a damage of NIS 8 million is still small compared to the approaching damage. Every moment that the war continues – and according to what is happening on the ground, there are no signs of surrender/peace – keeps Maccabi Tel Aviv away from hosting matches in the Euroleague next season as well. The meaning: subscribers will not want to buy a subscription, even if it is a practical contribution to the existence of the club. Any drop in the budget – And this is really a drop – it will significantly reduce the competitiveness of Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Euroleague and even in the league, where its control is almost unprecedented: 55 years.
Oded Ketch, Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball coach (Photo: Oren Ben Hakon/Flash90)
There is already talk of the departure of Lorenzo Brown to Real Madrid, of Josh Nibo to Armani Milan and uncertainty regarding Oded Ketch, and not only because of Maccabi Tel’s declining ability to pay, but also because of the security situation. It can be estimated, even if not cautiously, that Such a departure will lead to thoughts of leaving for Wade Baldwin, Bonzie Coulson and several other prominent Israelis.
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Maccabi Tel Aviv has based its complete control of the sports consciousness on three prominent anchors: Euroleague, subscriptions and public status that is largely based on the club’s Maccabee narrative (victory is the vision of everything). All anchors are interconnected. Inability to watch Euroleague home games or even expulsion From the Euroleague – there are supporters for this mainly because of the precedent of the expulsion of the Russian teams – it means a collapse in the subscription system, which may bring other peripheral economic damages, which make up a significant part of the rest of the budget.
Reminder: unlike its rivals, Maccabi Tel Aviv bases the lion’s share of its revenue on the sale of subscriptions. What hurts it, will not necessarily hurt its rivals to the same extent. In Israel, certainly not in Europe.
There is a definite solution to such a situation: owner investment. In this case, the investment of new or current owners can change the control structure. The veteran trio, the leader and decider in the club – Shimon Mizrahi, David Federman and Udi Recanati – have American partners: Richard Deitch and Ben Ashkenazi. Their desire to increase their control over Maccabi Tel-Aviv can correspond with the chaotic situation the club found itself in because of the war (which also arrived 3 and a half years after the corona virus that did its damage), and any change in the ownership structure, the essence of which is a change in the narrative or at least its obfuscation.
When it comes at the same time as the growth of two rising forces in Israeli basketball – Ofer Yanai in Hapoel Tel Aviv and Matan Adelson in Hapoel Jerusalem – who are targeting a huge financial investment for future entry into the Euroleague, through the Eurocup in the first stage, hey, the mythical status of Maccabi Tel Aviv is starting to crack.
Professional and financial weakness, a change of owners, and perhaps the loss of a place in the Euroleague are not only the wishful thinking of Maccabi Tel Aviv haters (and there is no shortage of them), they are an almost real apocalypse. There are examples in global and local sports of empires whose economic status change kept them away for years, if not permanently , from their previous centers of control.
Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel Aviv in soccer, Elitzur Holon in women’s basketball, Liverpool that has not won a championship for 30 years in a row, Manchester United now, Lyon in France, Chicago Bulls in the NBA. Sometimes these clubs depend on their players, their managers, their mythology. Maccabi Tel Aviv depends on its audience. Without an audience, there are no subscribers. Without subscribers, there is no money. Without money, there is damage to the image, the brand, the narrative, damage to the Holy of Holies – Maccabiism.
It may be that this excellent team, which qualified without a home team for the quarter-finals, and can also reach the Final Four and take the championship in Israel again, is something that cannot be preserved (it is almost certain) or restored. It could be that the victory on Tuesday in Oaxaca was the swan song, not only in sports, but in everything.
