For years, ALBA Berlin has been one of the figureheads of German basketball. Currently, the giant seems to be faltering. There is even a threat of collapse, as happened before with some serial champions.
“Eleven-time German Champion, eleven-time Cup winner, always first division, ALBA Berlin” regularly echoes through the basketball halls in Germany. The chant of the ALBA fans is far more than a cheer; it makes clear how successful the Albatrosses have been in recent decades.
Clearly, when one thinks of basketball in Germany, most sports fans also think of ALBA Berlin. Only the Bayer Giants Leverkusen are even more successful with 14 championship titles. But Leverkusen last triumphed in 1996 and currently only plays in the ProA (second division).
The ALBA dominance began with the end of the Leverkusen dynasty. In 1997, the Berliners won their first title and then six more championships by 2003. Number eight was added in 2008. At the beginning of the 2020s, another dominance followed with a championship hat-trick.
But since then, things have gone downhill for Berlin. In the past three years, ALBA has remained without a title and was even eliminated in the BBL quarter-finals twice.
League change has “massive impact” for ALBA
In addition, things have not been going well internationally recently. In Europe’s premier class, the EuroLeague, they were last twice last. Also for this reason, but especially because of the financial risk, the club decided to withdraw from the EuroLeague and compete in the second-class Champions League in the future.
“We have no way of permanently keeping our heads above water through external injections,” explained Managing Director Marco Baldi in *Bild*: “The EuroLeague clubs lose around 200 million euros a year. And that doesn’t bother them. But we can’t operate like that.”
The change should be a decisive moment for ALBA. Instead of Real Madrid or Fenerbahce Istanbul, they will now meet ERA Nymburk (Czech Republic) and BC Sabah (Azerbaijan) in the group stage.
Overall, ALBA will have significantly fewer international games with significantly fewer spectators. Therefore, the club must plan differently, as Baldi explained: “It may be that it’s over after just three match days. And that has a massive impact on the volume.”
ALBA Sporting Director expects one of the “most difficult summers”
Inevitably, this means that a lot will change at ALBA. The squad will shrink from 15 to twelve players. Nevertheless, the costs remain extremely high, also because the rents for the halls in Berlin are extremely expensive. “We pay as much rent as no other club in Europe,” Baldi recently complained on the ALBA homepage.
Because ticket revenues and sponsorship money will also fall due to the unattractive opponents in the Champions League, the Berliners expect large financial cuts.
According to media reports, the budget of eight million to decrease by several million euros. A big challenge, as ALBA Sporting Director Himar Ojeda explained in an interview with *rbb24*: “It is one of the most difficult summers I have had so far.”
ALBA Sporting Director Himar Ojeda has a tough task ahead of him
At least positively, Ojeda made it clear that ALBA still has the second-highest BBL budget behind FC Bayern Basketball.
ALBA restructuring reminiscent of Bamberg crash
But that is not a guarantee of good players either. Because the league change in Europe also has an impact on possible transfers. “Due to the EuroLeague, we were recently in a group on the market directly after the top teams. Now we compete with the clubs in the EuroCup, in the Champions League and the financially strong Spanish league,” said Ojeda.
And it is precisely competing with this competition without the attractive EuroLeague status that can become a real mammoth task, at which a former German serial champion has failed mercilessly in the past.
In 2018, the then dominator of German basketball, the Bamberg Baskets, announced that they would turn their backs on the EuroLeague and compete in the Champions League in the future. This was followed by a crash, also in the BBL.
Between 2005 and 2017, the Bambergers won all nine of their championship titles and also won the cup four times. After the EuroLeague withdrawal, they only won the cup in 2019. Bamberg never played for the championship again.
In the past three seasons, the team from Upper Franconia missed the play-offs each time, and in 2024/25 they were even a disappointing 15th. Financially, things became increasingly tight after the lack of success.
Will ALBA succeed in rebuilding again?
Accordingly, they will also be warned in Berlin. The pressure on sporting director Ojeda is great. He has to attract high-quality players despite the lack of EuroLeague.
It gives hope that Ojeda knows the situation. In the summer of 2018, he built the basic structure for ALBA’s successful years, even though the team was also playing in the EuroCup at the time, a similar competition to the Champions League.
This was followed by the title hat-trick in the BBL, also because previously unknown players such as Luke Sikma, Johannes Thiemann and Simone Fontecchio developed into top stars in Berlin.
Fontecchio (l.), Thiemann (2nd from l.) and Sikma (2nd from r.) won the championship together
At that time, ALBA was considered the springboard for young talents in Europe, but they lost this reputation again in recent years. Ojeda’s newcomers no longer caught fire and, moreover, a national competitor became the new springboard for top talents.
Are we ALBA becoming a hotspot for German talents?
With the ultra-modern Orange Campus and plenty of guaranteed playing time, ratiopharm Ulm recently attracted Killian Hayes (Detroit), Pacome Dadiet (New York), Ben Saraf (Brooklyn) and Noa Essengue (Chicago), four players who were drafted directly from Ulm into the NBA.
This also spread in Europe, ALBA lost its unique selling point to Ulm. But in Berlin, at least, a new concept seems to have been discovered. If you look at the transfers so far, you will notice that with Jack Kayil and Norris Agbakoko, two highly talented Germans are moving to Berlin.
Kayil in particular is considered one of the greatest talents in Germany. The 19-year-old was one of the top performers at the silver coup at the U19 World Cup. Also special: The guard was born in Berlin. Now he should also take off for ALBA in the BBL.
“The club is in a state of upheaval. This offers new players like me a great opportunity. I am a winning type and want to help lead ALBA back to the top,” Kayil told the *B.Z.* confidently.
ALBA must also prove itself against US colleges
But as great as the opportunity for ALBA could be with the transfer of the highly talented guard, the transfer also shows the dilemma in which the club currently finds itself. Because Kayil himself made it clear that ALBA is only a stopover for him.
“I want to go to the NBA,” Kayil emphasized and also explained that the path via a US college is also conceivable for this: “That could perhaps become an issue next year.”
Kayil would not be the first player that ALBA loses to the NCAA. Elias Rapieque (Kansas State) and Amon Dörries (Bucknell) said goodbye to college this summer alone. Sporting director Ojeda speaks of the fact that the young talents can earn between 500,000 and 1.5 million euros per year through the new NIL deals.
Will a possible NBA Europe become a great ALBA opportunity?
In Berlin, however, people are looking positively into the future, probably also because the change to the Champions League did not happen entirely without ulterior motives.
ALBA seems to be eyeing a possible NBA Europe, which is still hovering on the horizon. With this possible project, the NBA wants to cooperate with FIBA, the association that organizes the Champions League.
The Berliners could become one of the most well-known members and thus ensure a huge upswing again in a few years – financially and in terms of external presentation.
But until then, the Berliners must first prevent themselves from being passed through in a similar way to the previous BBL serial champions.