EuroLeague Basketball

TidyTuesday 2025-10-07

Overview

This week’s TidyTuesday focused on EuroLeague Basketball, the premier men’s club basketball competition in Europe. Let’s have a map!

Data preparation

# Get data
library(tidytuesdayR)
library(janitor) # to clean column names
dat <- tt_load("2025-10-07")$euroleague_basketball |>
  clean_names()

# Load other required libraries
library(ggplot2) # to plot maps
library(tidygeocoder) # to get coordinates from city names
library(dplyr) # for data manipulation
library(sf) # for spatial data handling
library(scales) # for better axis formatting
library(tidyr) # for data tidying
library(stringr) # for string manipulation
library(patchwork) # to combine plots
library(ggrepel) # to avoid overlapping text labels
library(rnaturalearth) # for basemap
library(rnaturalearthdata) # for basemap
library(showtext) # for custom fonts
library(sysfonts) # for custom fonts
library(ggbranding) # for branding
library(ggtext) # for rich text in ggplot
library(MoMAColors) # for color palettes

# first expand based on ", "
# then, convert capacity to numeric
dat <- dat |>
  separate_rows(capacity, sep = ", ") |>
  mutate(capacity = str_remove_all(capacity, ",") |> as.numeric())
# capacity trim "," and move to numeric

# keep distinct team but with higher capacity if multiple values
dat <- dat |>
  group_by(team) |>
  arrange(desc(capacity)) |>
  slice(1) |>
  ungroup()

# get the coordinates of the cities
coords <- dat |>
  distinct(home_city, country) |>
  geocode(
    city = home_city,
    country = country,
    method = "osm", # OpenStreetMap
    lat = latitude,
    long = longitude,
    full_results = FALSE
  )

# join back coordinates
dat <- dat |>
  left_join(coords, by = c("home_city"))

# as sf
dat_sf <- st_as_sf(
  dat,
  coords = c("longitude", "latitude"),
  crs = 4326,
  remove = FALSE
)

Visualization

# setup fonts
showtext_auto()
showtext_opts(dpi = 300)
font_add_google("Oswald", "oswald")

# setup colors
alpha_col <- 0.5
palette_name <- "Alkalay1"

# get country basemap
world <- rnaturalearth::ne_countries(scale = "medium", returnclass = "sf")

# basemap
bsm <-
  ggplot(data = world) +
  geom_sf(data = world, fill = "gray95", colour = "gray80") +
  geom_sf(
    data = dat_sf,
    aes(size = capacity, color = titles_won),
    alpha = alpha_col
  ) +
  geom_text_repel(
    data = dat_sf,
    aes(label = team, geometry = geometry),
    stat = "sf_coordinates",
    force = 5,
    family = "oswald",
  ) +
  # Europe bounding box
  coord_sf(
    xlim = c(-15, 60),
    ylim = c(20, 65),
    expand = FALSE
  ) +
  scale_size(
    range = c(4, 12),
    name = "Arena capacity",
    breaks = c(5000, 10000, 15000),
    labels = comma,
    guide = guide_legend(
      title.position = "top",
      title.hjust = 0.5,
      override.aes = list(alpha = 1, color = "gray30")
    )
  ) +
  scale_color_moma_c(
    palette_name = palette_name,
    name = "Total titles Won",
    guide = guide_colorbar(
      barwidth = unit(5, "cm"),
      barheight = unit(0.5, "cm"),
      title.position = "top",
      title.hjust = 0.5,
      alpha = alpha_col + 0.2
    )
  ) +
  theme_void(base_family = "oswald") +
  theme(
    legend.position = c(0.82, 0.80),
    legend.direction = "horizontal",
    legend.box.just = "center",
    legend.title = element_text(size = 14),
    text = element_text(size = 12)
  )
#bsm

# scatter inset

scatter_inset <- ggplot(
  dat_sf,
  aes(x = capacity, y = titles_won, colour = titles_won)
) +
  geom_point(alpha = alpha_col + 2, size = 3) +
  geom_text_repel(
    data = dat_sf |> filter(titles_won > 0),
    aes(label = team),
    size = 4,
    family = "oswald"
  ) +
  scale_colour_moma_c(
    palette_name = palette_name
  ) +
  labs(title = "Titles Won vs. Arena Capacity", x = NULL, y = NULL) +
  theme_minimal(
    base_size = 14,
    base_family = "oswald"
  ) +
  theme(
    legend.position = "none"
  )

# titles
title <- "Bigger means winner? Geographic overview of EuroLeague Basketball teams"
subtitle <- branding(
  github = "gnoblet",
  bluesky = "gnoblet",
  website = "guillaume-noblet.com",
  text_size = "14pt",
  icon_size = "14pt",
  text_family = "oswald",
  text_color = "black",
  icon_color = "black"
)
caption <- "Data: EuroLeague Basketball | TidyTuesday October 7"

combined_plot <- bsm +
  inset_element(
    scatter_inset,
    left = 0,
    bottom = 0,
    right = 0.55,
    top = 0.35
  ) +
  inset_element(
    ggplot() +
      geom_textbox(
        aes(
          label = title
        ),
        family = "oswald",
        x = 0.02,
        y = 0.95,
        hjust = 0,
        fill = NA,
        box.color = NA,
        box.padding = unit(c(0, 0, 0, 0), "pt"),
        width = unit(0.65, "npc"),
        size = 9
      ) +
      geom_textbox(
        aes(
          label = subtitle
        ),
        family = "oswald",
        x = 0.02,
        y = 0.86,
        hjust = 0,
        fill = NA,
        box.color = NA,
        box.padding = unit(c(0, 0, 0, 0), "pt"),
        width = unit(0.6, "npc"),
        size = 5
      ) +
      theme_void(),
    left = 0,
    right = 1,
    bottom = 0,
    top = 1,
    align_to = 'full'
  )

# save
ggsave(
  "week_40.png",
  plot = combined_plot,
  width = 10,
  height = 8,
  dpi = 300
)

Viz