2024-08-02 04:09:13
The business deal follows technology accelerator Tesonet’s acquisition of the title-winning UK club in a high-potential market. Žalgiris Group provides London Lions with a short-term, three-month loan to cover essential expenses, which will be returned to the group by Tesonet, which acquired the club.
“Contributing to the management of the Lions club opens up new opportunities for Žalgiris to increase its visibility in Europe, to be close to London’s young talents and to ensure the long-term growth of the sports pyramid – said Dainius Liulys, the new director of UAB Žalgiris Group. – The London Lions club, which will participate in the highest level international tournaments, will become another platform to attract and develop promising young basketball players from all over the world. At the same time, the club will be able to gain experience from the sports pyramid and management of “Žalgiris” basketball club, strengthening the sports potential and growing the fan base.”
“The completed business transaction will not change the goals, obligations and management model of the “Zalgiris” basketball club. We are located in Kaunas, where everyone lives for basketball, we have an excellent sports infrastructure for the “Zalgiris” team. We’ll be looking to get as much out of London as we can when we get the chance. However, it is a very multicultural city, many representatives of other countries. In the youth teams of “Žalgiris” Kaunas, we always wanted to see more young people from different basketball schools. Now will be a great opportunity to be close to it and try them”, said Paulius Jankūnas, president of the Žalgiris club.
The cooperation between the Lions and Žalgiris clubs will be marked by the development of promising young people in the basketball market with huge opportunities. The youth will have a platform to play in the local British Basketball League (BBL) and in the future also in European club basketball tournaments. The players who grew up in the club system will not only help to achieve the highest results, but will also generate income that Lions will share together with Žalgiris. At the same time, this will be an opportunity for the Kaunas club organization to grow, both financially and from the point of view of experience in developing an international project.
In addition, it is hoped that the “Lions” club, cooperating with the “Žalgiris” organization, will help build bridges with more basketball-loving diasporas in London, among them – an extremely large Lithuanian community, which visited the club’s matches in large numbers in the past and previous seasons.
London has repeatedly become one of the hottest spots for basketball in Europe. Since 1993, the NBA has been holding friendly matches between its league clubs here. Since 2011, 9 NBA regular season games have already been played in London, and also, on their initiative, youth basketball camps are also held in London, which have attracted great interest.
Last season, in which the Lions became the champion of the British Basketball League and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup tournament, attracted considerable interest from local basketball fans. A total of more than 33,000 people watched the club’s matches in the European Cup. the number of fans, which allowed the club to take the 6th position among the 20 teams of the tournament in terms of the total number of spectators who attended home matches. Finalization of the transaction may take another month or so.
2024-08-02 04:09:13