In preparation for the upcoming 2024-25 EuroLeague Women season, FIBA has sorted the competing clubs into four regular-season groups. This highlights the first of several changes that will be made to the competition’s format this coming season, which FIBA promises will “raise the stakes” of its regular-season (or “group”) phase.
EuroLeague Women last had a four-group system for the entirety of the 2020-21 regular season. This time around, there will be two phases to group play. In the first phase, each club will play its group opponents twice (described by FIBA as “round-robin” fashion), after which the top three clubs from each group will advance to the second phase and be re-seeded into two new groups.
In the second phase of group play, competing clubs will once again play their group opponents in round-robin fashion. The winners of these second-phase groups will advance to the new EuroLeague Women Play-Ins, which will determine which clubs participate in the postseason; two clubs will make to the semifinals automatically, skipping the quarterfinals, while the remaining four will play for the right to make the semifinals. This takes what was previously known as the EuroLeague Women Final Four and creates a “Final Six” instead.
This may seem like a lot of work logistically, but if all goes according to plan, the tiered regular-season format will make things more exciting. In the previous group play format, it was obvious right away which clubs would end up competing for the EuroLeague Women championship; while that will likely still be the case, by introducing a second phase to group play, the pool of competition will be diversified earlier on in the season. Along those same lines, the first round of the postseason may also now be more competitive than in years past.
Clubs chosen for regular-season groups and qualifiers
Fasten your seatbelts, we’re ready for the new season
Who is your very early #EuroLeagueWomen favorite?
— EuroLeague Women (@EuroLeagueWomen) July 18, 2024
There will be a total of 16 clubs competing in EuroLeague Women for 2024-25, and 13 have already been put into groups for the first phase of group play. These include defending champions Fenerbahçe Alagöz Holding, runners-up Villeneuve-d’Ascq and other frequent participants such as Perfumerias Avenida, ZVVZ USK Praha and Çukurova Basket Mersin.
The remaining three spots will be decided in the EuroLeague Women qualifiers, which are set to be played on September 18 and September 25. Participants in these qualifiers include Casademont Zaragoza and Basket Landes, both of which played in EuroLeague Women last season. The three clubs that fail to advance out of the qualifiers will be placed in the EuroCup Women competition, which will also begin in the fall.