Spain - Liga Endesa
Home league

About Spain ACB

The Liga ACB, for Asociacion de Clubes de Baloncesto, is known today as Liga Endesa, following a new sponsorship deal signed in 2011 with an electric company. 18 teams, 34 regular season games followed by playoffs.

One can argue the Spanish basketball league is the top domestic league in Europe with four of its teams playing the Euroleague. The rivalry between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, nicknamed El Classico, has been the main attraction for years as the two giants have won 53 out of 63 championships since 1956. Real took home 35 trophies and has extended its dominance to the Euroleague with 10 championships.

Overall, the ACB is known for its profesionalism and the quality of its infrastructures. 8 arenas in the League can host more that 10.000 fans and the average attendance is above 6.000 per game. The influence of US players tends to be less important than in other European leagues with teams signing top players from Eastern Europe or South America.

Except for those playing in the NBA, the top Spanish players don’t take their talents abroad but stay on home soil, therefore strenghtening the local clubs.

How does the Liga Endesa work?

The Liga Endesa, which is named for sponsorship reasons and is also known generically as Liga ACB, is the main professional basketball league in Spain. Between 1957 and 1983, it was controlled by the Spanish Basketball Federation. Since then, the Association of Basketball Clubs (ACB) has taken over the reins of the league.Today, the Liga Endesa is composed of 18 teams that compete in a first phase, where each team plays each other twice. 

At the end of the first phase, the top seven or eight teams qualify for the Copa Del Rey (the number varies, as the host team is automatically awarded a place regardless of its ranking), a spectacular competition concentrated in one weekend. At the end of the regular season, the top eight teams advance to the playoffs, with the quarterfinals and semifinals played in best-of-three games and the final in best-of-five games. The team that wins the playoffs is declared the winner of the Liga Endesa and the Spanish champion.

On the other hand, the two teams that at the end of the regular season occupy the last two places in the ranking are relegated to the lower category, called LEB Gold.

Is there a team with more titles than the others?

Since the creation of this Spanish first division, only three clubs have participated in all editions: Real Madrid, Barcelona and Joventut de Badalona. These three teams are, unsurprisingly, on the podium of the most titled clubs in Spain, with a large domination of Real Madrid and Barcelona, which have won the title of Spanish champion on 35 and 19 occasions respectively.