EuroLeague Honors Fenerbahce, Bourg-en-Bresse and Milan at the 2026-26 One Team Awards

On September 9, 2026, with the EuroLeague 2026-26 calendar yet to settle into its rhythm, the organizers of Europe's premier basketball competition sent out an announcement carrying no efficiency metrics and no standings — only four names: Fenerbahce Tarfin Istanbul, Cosea JL Bourg-en-Bresse, Armani Olimpia Milan and Sasha Vezenkov of Olympiacos Piraeus. These are the One Team Awards, an honor for clubs and ambassadors who have made outstanding contributions through community inclusion programs. In a year when the EuroLeague chose community integration as its overarching theme, tied to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 on reduced inequalities, those four names represent four ways of telling a basketball story away from the court.

"Applause echoing in an empty gym is news too." That line is not a slogan. It is how I read the EuroLeague's announcement on a September morning. In our news feeds, we are used to measuring basketball by points, shooting percentages, offensive and defensive ratings. Here, the unit of measurement is what happens after the final buzzer. A basketball program for the elderly in Istanbul. An inclusion plan drafted session by session in Bourg-en-Bresse. A classroom inside Milan's arena. And an ambassador, Sasha Vezenkov, recognized for the way he shows up consistently, through small, genuine gestures.

Context: What One Team is and why it matters

One Team is the EuroLeague's corporate social responsibility program, run as an annual initiative with a league-level workshop for participating clubs. That workshop is not about pick-and-roll tactics or switch defense. It is about sharing approaches to community work across the different basketball cultures of Europe. In the latest announcement, the EuroLeague said 10 clubs and 5 ambassadors made the shortlist before the organizers chose the honorees.

What stands out is the geographic spread. The names stretch from Turkey to France, from Italy to Slovenia. Fenerbahce represents Turkish basketball with the backing of sponsor Beko. Bourg-en-Bresse represents French basketball through a detailed planning model. Milan represents Italian basketball with an education-first approach, accompanied by Laureus and Scalo Milano. Olympiacos represents Greek basketball through Vezenkov's ambassadorial role. That distribution shows One Team is not a side project of a single club, but a continent-wide connected model, as the league itself described it: an innovative model of interconnectedness across an entire continent.

For EuroLeague followers, this is the least-watched part of the season. We focus on games, on the race for the Top 8, on transfer moves. But alongside that race there is always another one: a race in which clubs are measured by social impact, by how many people they reach, by whether they can sustain community participation across seasons. That race has no standings on television, yet it is shaping how European clubs build identity.

Core analysis: Four stories, four ways of taking basketball off the court

Fenerbahce Tarfin Istanbul is the first name. Their program focuses on the elderly, pairing basketball sessions with cultural and artistic experiences. This approach does not aim to produce players; it aims to produce space. In modern basketball we talk about space in tactical terms: room for a shooter, room for a penetrating pass. Here, space is social: a place for a 70-year-old to go, people to talk to, a reason to leave the walls of home for a day. Fenerbahce's program manager, Mert Ahmet Gunduz, emphasized the role of the fan community. The way he speaks about the great Fenerbahce fans shows the program is not merely a club activity but an extension of a basketball family that has existed for decades.

Cosea JL Bourg-en-Bresse is the second name. The most notable feature of this French club is its session-by-session planning. It sounds administrative, but in community program management, planning session by session is a sign of seriousness. Community basketball cannot run on passing inspiration. It needs schedules, accountable staff, measurement methods. Manager Mathis Rolly is cited as the operational anchor. Bourg-en-Bresse also reported strong retention and a steady stream of new recruits. In any social program, retention is the hardest metric. A single session can draw a crowd for a first visit. Getting them to return a second, third, tenth time requires an environment that genuinely creates belonging.

Armani Olimpia Milan is the third name. Their program focuses on education, with partners such as Laureus and Scalo Milano. This is a model in which the club does not do everything alone but mobilizes outside resources. A basketball club can provide venue, image, and appeal. Social partners can provide expertise, networks, and resources. Manager Michele Samadan serves as the connector. The strength of this model is scalability; the weakness is dependence on the durability of partnerships. In the volatile financial landscape of European basketball, a multi-partner community program is often more flexible but also more complex in maintaining a unified voice.

Sasha Vezenkov of Olympiacos Piraeus is the fourth name, in the Best One Team Ambassador category. This is the most notable point in the announcement. Vezenkov was not honored for points, three-point percentage, or any on-court metric. He was recognized for schedule adherence, for small and genuine gestures, and for consistent media presence. In an era when every community activity risks becoming a media campaign, a high-profile EuroLeague star showing up regularly and without fanfare carries symbolic weight. It sends a message: the ambassador role is not a photo shoot but a long string of days.

"A dorm room once recorded; now the whole world listens."

I think about that line when I read about Vezenkov. Years ago, when I started recording my first podcasts from a small dorm room, I never imagined that listening to others could become part of how I understand basketball. But following EuroLeague community programs season after season, I have realized a club's value is not only in what happens during 40 minutes of play. It is also in what happens during the other 364 days. A program for the elderly produces no highlights. A classroom in Milan sparks no tactical debate. But they keep basketball present in everyday life.

European basketball has an advantage North American basketball lacks: clubs are usually tightly bound to their city and surrounding region. A team in Bourg-en-Bresse does not merely represent a brand; it represents a specific community. That makes programs like One Team feel more natural. The club does not need to go find the community. The community is already there, just outside the arena.

The blind spot: When a community award has no stats column

This is the part least discussed in coverage of the One Team Awards. The EuroLeague's announcement describes the programs through stories, inspiration, and positive quotes from managers. There is nothing wrong with that. But it also means we lack an independent measurement system to assess the real impact of these programs.

The question is not whether these programs matter. They do. The question is: how long does that meaning last, and who verifies it? In risk analysis, two points stand out. First, program sustainability depends on funding streams. Fenerbahce has Beko. Milan has Laureus and Scalo Milano. If a sponsor withdraws, can the program continue? Second, there is a risk that awards become marketing tools rather than measures of social impact. When a program is honored, the pressure to tell a beautiful story often outweighs the pressure to report honestly.

This matters especially for the groups One Team targets: the elderly, people with intellectual disabilities, groups with balanced gender participation. These groups are hard to measure with simple indicators. Attendance at one session does not reveal true inclusion. A group photo does not replace a longitudinal tracking report.

There is a positive note: the EuroLeague's emphasis on Vezenkov's small and genuine gestures, rather than staged activities, suggests the organizers are at least aware of the difference between image and impact. But awareness is only the first step. The next step is an independent evaluation mechanism, where programs are measured by long-term outcomes rather than short-term narratives.

"The gym may be full or empty; the ball's rules stay the same — only the players change."

In professional basketball, we are used to measuring success by countable things. Points, rebounds, assists, plus-minus. At One Team, the measures are harder to count: whether people return, whether they feel they belong, whether trust exists between club and community. That is why community programs are often undervalued in sports analysis. They do not appear on box scores, so they are easy to treat as secondary.

But from an operational standpoint, this is the hardest part. A club can buy a good player in one transfer window. A club needs years to build a community program with high retention. Bourg-en-Bresse, with its session-by-session planning and steady intake of new participants, is an example. Their results come not from a big media campaign but from patient repetition. In an industry where coaches can be fired after a few losses, patient repetition is a rare asset.

"Every podcast episode is a conversation; every game is a reply."

I learned this in my early podcasting years. When I called 15 Miami Heat fans during the league shutdown, I was not looking for perfect answers. I was looking for presence. A EuroLeague community program works the same way. Its value is not that every session succeeds, but that it keeps happening. Consistency builds trust. Trust builds participation. Participation builds impact.

Looking ahead: Signals to track

The 2026-26 One Team Awards ended with the announcement, but the real work is just beginning. Three signals are worth tracking for the rest of the season.

First, participant retention rates. If programs like Bourg-en-Bresse's continue to grow at double-digit rates by the next workshop cycle, that will be the strongest evidence the model has long-term vitality. Second, sponsor decisions. Whether Beko, Laureus and Scalo Milano commit for multiple years will determine the financial stability of the programs. Third, Vezenkov's media activity. If his ambassadorial role maintains a steady rhythm, the standard for player ambassadors in the future will be raised.

Takeaway

A league is measured by championships. A basketball culture is measured by how many people it reaches. The EuroLeague is trying to run both measures in parallel, and One Team is the least visible part of that effort. With Fenerbahce, Bourg-en-Bresse, Milan and Vezenkov, the league chose examples of patience over examples of glory. That is a choice worth noting. The question for next season is not who will win, but whether these programs will still be present when first sessions become hundredth sessions. Basketball does not happen only in 40 minutes. It happens in the silences between games. And in those silences, applause can still echo, even when the gym holds no spectators at all.