Sofascore was part of the ABA League‘s 25th anniversary celebrations in Ljubljana, joining club officials, league executives and media partners for a night dedicated to a quarter century of regional basketball. The event brought together everyone connected to the competition’s story, from its founders to the broadcasters who have carried it into homes across the region ever since.

A gala night at the league’s birthplace

The main ceremony was staged at Tivoli Hall, the venue that hosted the very first ABA League game and crowned the competition’s first champion 25 years ago. More than 300 guests filled the hall to mark the milestone, and the evening leaned heavily on that sense of history.

Special recognitions went to the league’s founding visionaries, including Božo Miličević, Radovan Lorbek, Roman Lisac and Zmago Sagadin, alongside the club officials who steered Bosna, Budućnost, Olimpija and Cibona through the league’s early years. The 2015 reorganization into today’s ABA League j.t.d., headquartered in Zagreb, was also honored, with plaques going to the figures behind that transformation.

Long-term partners were part of the celebration too. TV Arena Sport, whose broadcast deal with the league dates back to 2009 and has produced more than 3,665 live games across all ABA competitions, received special recognition for its role in growing the league’s audience. The night also carried a quieter, more personal moment: a tribute to commentator Edin Avdić, whose voice defined ABA League broadcasts for years before his passing earlier this year.

Damjan Rudež moderates the business forum

Earlier the same day, the ABA League Business Forum brought industry figures together at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Ljubljana for two panel discussions on the future of the sport. Damjan Rudež, Senior Advisor for Global Partnerships at Sofascore, moderated both sessions.

The opening panel, “How to Build a Better Sports Product,” tackled what it takes to grow a modern sports competition, featuring ABA League Director Dubravko Kmetović, former player and BC Zenit Sports Director Sani Bečirović, TV Arena Sport Creative Director Zoran Panjković and Sava Re board member Peter Skvarča.

A second panel looked further ahead, with ABA League President Ostoja Mijailović, Vice President Dragan Bokan, EuroLeague Basketball Chief Competitions Officer Diego Guillen and Cedevita Olimpija Vice President Tomaž Berločnik discussing where regional and European basketball go from here, again with Rudež guiding the conversation.

Tivoli Hall, twice a stage for Rudež

For Rudež, the evening at Tivoli Hall carried a personal thread as well. It was in that same arena, back in 2009, that he lifted the Slovenian championship title with Union Olimpija, beating Helios 69:58 to seal the club’s 15th national crown. Rudež finished that game with 10 points, seven of them coming in a second-quarter burst that helped Olimpija pull away for good. Seventeen years later, he returned to Tivoli not as a player but as a partnership executive, watching the league he once competed in mark 25 years of history in the same hall where he made some of his own.