The launch of NBA Europe will be delayed 12 months until 2028, with a pre-qualifying competition planned for next year to find four temporary members to join the 16-team league’s inaugural season alongside 12 permanent franchises. The NBA is planning to invest about $10bn (£7.6bn) over 10 years in what sources have described as the sporting world’s biggest-ever startup competition. It is understood to have received multiple offers for the 12 franchises that exceed their targets, with prices expected to range from $500m to more than $1bn for the London franchise.
Many of the winning bids are expected to come from the owners of football clubs that compete in the Champions League, with the deputy commissioner, Mark Tatum, holding talks with senior executives from Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Milan last week. London, Manchester, Rome, Athens, Istanbul and Lyon will also get permanent franchises, topped up by four qualifiers from within European basketball’s existing structure. The London franchise is understood to have attracted several bids in excess of $1bn from some eye-catching investors including the former Chelsea chair Todd Boehly, a consortium involving the former Tottenham chair Daniel Levy and MSP Sports Capital, as well as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Buss Sports Capital, the US investment group that sold its 17.8% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to Joshua Kushner this year, is believed to have submitted an offer for the Manchester franchise, but City Football Group (CFG) has not bid despite having close links with the NBA, which has agreed to set up a new global academy in Abu Dhabi as part of a $300m partnership. While the NBA has not committed to a timeframe, it is understood it hopes to announce the identity of the new franchise owners this year. The NBA managing director George Aivazoglou told the Leaders in Sport conference on Thursday that “we’re moving ahead with plans for a launch next year,” although it remains unclear what the soft launch will look like.
At a meeting at Lake Como this week, the EuroLeague clubs voted to reject the NBA’s initial offer of investment in favour of pursuing their plans to expand from 20 to 24 clubs, although NBA sources insist talks will continue. In football every single club understands the clear pathway to play at the top level. That doesn’t exist in basketball.” The NBA’s decision to seek a partnership with EuroLeagues rather than go it alone was taken during the summer, when it settled on a hybrid model representing Europe and North America’s sporting cultures.
In a structure that echoes football’s toxic and swiftly abandoned European Super League (ESL), NBA Europe will have 12 permanent members, with four temporary members admitted annually. While the mechanism for promotion is to be confirmed, NBA sources say there will be two entry routes: the top two ranked sides from a new second-tier European competition called the Basketball Champions League, and two finalists in a separate tournament for all of Europe’s domestic champions. In another nod to greater upward mobility, the highest ranked non-franchise club that reaches the nd-of-season playoffs would keep their place in NBA Europe the next season, with the other three sent back to the play-in competition, so there would probably be a regular turnover of entrants outside the permanent 12.
While there are billions of reasons that big European football clubs want a slice of the NBA, there are suspicions that some may have ulterior motives. Several sources involved in the discussions said Real Madrid’s president, Florentino Pérez, seems particularly invested in NBA Europe, eager to establish the principle of a semi-closed league in Europe in case the prospect of a breakaway football league returns. Ironically, Pérez had previously cited EuroLeague, which has 13 permanent voting members supplemented by seven additional clubs on an annual basis, as a model for the ESL.
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