Baloncesto Sevilla is the new kid in town. Though it may seems it is still the same club, a number of things have changed. The traditional sponsor, the bank recently named Cajasol, was acquired by another company, La Caixa. The new owners did not fancy spending so much money in the club as the sponsor used to do, and they decided to cut the budget a 50%. Still, the team managed to perform over expectation thanks to an exciting mix of young players like Satoranski, Porzingis, Bamforth, Balvin, Hernangomez and so many more who will definitely have their own name in coming years.
This year, they simply decided to sell the club to Jefferson Capital Funding (Jefferson CF), an American investment group decided to make basketball popular in the biggest city in southern Spain. Hard task, because so far nobody really was able to do so. There are two big football clubs in the city, and it seems that, although you may see basketball courts all around the city full of people, professional basketball is not popular enough. Maybe fans did not find any link with the home town team. Nevertheless, Jefferson CF is here to stay, according to them. Brand new logo, nice jerseys, an American style to start.
A number of retired players have arrived to take care of the team. Jose Luis Galilea, Audie Norris and Benito Doblado, three renowned players in the Spanish league, will be involved in the development of young players, scouting and signing of new players. Their initial commitment was to preserve the good job done so far, as many players as possible, but so far they kicked the coach and builder of this team, Aito Garcia Reneses, and a number of players like Bamforth, Mata and Sastre. Satoranski simply could not say “no” to the offer from Barcelona.
In recent days, it was announced the name of the new coach: Scott Roth. The American coach has a huge experience as an assistant coach in the NBA, where he coached for the last 15 years, but has never been the main coach in a club. So fans are really confused about how different is what the managers tell and then they do.
In any case, brand new winds are blowing in one of the most beautiful cities in Spain. Time will tell if the Americans brought progress or it was simply a failed experiment. We wish the best of luck.
