The first visit to China by the most-crowned club in Turkish Airlines Euroleague history was officially presented and the start of local tickets sales announced in Beijing on Tuesday.
Eight-time Euroleague champion Real Madrid, the competition’s current runner-up, will meet Chinese Basketball Association powerhouse the Beijing Ducks on Friday, October 11 at the MasterCard Center in the Chinese capital.
“We are really proud to bring another official game with a Euroleague Basketball team to China and to have Real Madrid, one of the best-known clubs in the world, represent us here,” Roser Queraltó, Euroleague Basketball’s Chief Business Development Officer, said at the press conference this morning. “This game is another step in the growing relationship between European and Chinese basketball, a relationship that we know will help our sport and excite fans.”
Recent ties between Euroleague Basketball and China include the arrival this season of the first Chinese player ever, Shang Ping of Panathinaikos Athens, to a European team; Chinese junior national teams competing at the last three Nike International Junior Tournaments; professional exchanges of Chinese coaches with Euroleague teams; and Chinese basketball delegations attending the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four to share the experience of the definitive event of the season in Europe.
The historic first-time encounter between Real Madrid and the Beijing Ducks will be the last of five games on three continents that make up this season’s Euroleague Basketball World Tour. Euroleague champion Olympiacos Piraeus visits Pinheiros Sky in Sao Paul, Brazil for two games, on October 4 and 6, in a revival of the Intercontinental Cup. And on October 7 and 10, CSKA Moscow will meet the San Antonio Spurs and the Minnesota Timberwolves, respectively, in the fifth edition of the Euroleague Basketball American Tour.
In addition, two more Euroleague Basketball teams will be hosts of the NBA Global Games Europe this fall as Fenerbahce Ulker Istanbul takes on the Oklahoma City Thunder on October 5 and Bilbao Basket plays the Philadelphia 76ers on October 6.
Besides the game against the Beijing Ducks, Real Madrid’s visit to Beijing will include planned activities and promotional events for Chinese fans, practices open to local players and coaches, and visits to some of country’s famous sites. In addition, Real Madrid will bring One Team, Euroleague Basketball’s corporate social responsibility program, to China with a session to be held at a school that serves children from low-income, migrant families who have come to Beijing from different provinces of the country.
