This week, when the NBA’s board of governors meets in New York, team owners will discuss a proposal to launch a new basketball league in Europe, according to Sportico.
In January, NBA commissioner Adam Silver told reporters in Paris that it was looking into the endeavor and would update its owners in March. While basketball is popular in Europe, “the commercial opportunity has not kept pace with the growth of the game,” Silver said. He added that “the market is ready to do more in this sport.”
Some details, per Sportico:
League owners are considering a new league with eight to 10 franchises, according to someone directly familiar with the plans. It’s a “semi-open” proposal, the person said, meaning there would be up to four spots for the best teams in the EuroLeague — the continent’s top circuit with teams like Real Madrid in Spain and Greece’s Olympiacos — to compete in the NBA’s European league the following year. The franchises in places like London or Paris could sell for at least $500 million, according to the proposal.
The league would sell the permanent franchise slots to outside investors, with the NBA holding 50% of the equity and franchise owners holding the other 50%, said the person, who was granted anonymity because the details are private. That’s a setup identical to the equity structure of the WNBA up until the league raised outside capital in 2022.
As it stands, NBA officials would prefer to sell those franchises to people outside of the league, the person said, meaning sovereign wealth funds, private capital, wealthy individuals or existing European basketball clubs.
The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov reported in January that Paris, London, Manchester, Berlin and Munich were among the cities in consideration for the new league, and that the NBA had unsuccessfully pitched the EuroLeague on a partnership. At around the same time, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported that the NBA had been talking to prospective owners for a year.
In Paris, Silver told reporters that the NBA would like the new league to represent “a broad base of countries” and could potentially include existing teams. “There’s enormous history and tradition here in European basketball, and we want to respect those traditions,” he said. It is fascinating, then, that this proposal reportedly involves the best EuroLeague teams competing in the new league.
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