The first time a powerful European soccer club inquireed the NBA if, in two years, it might be allowed to acquire one of the league’s stars for NBA Europe, the answer was immediate.
No.
Imagine it: A rich, powerful, proper football conglomerate overseas starts a binquireetball team. It picks up the phone and dials the Milwaukee Bucks, who, for the sake of argument, are having a rough season. The club states, hey, here’s a couple hundred million dollars, or whatever it may cost, how about Giannis Antetokounmpo coming to play for us in NBA Europe?
The idea — a transfer window between the NBA and its proposed new European league, where a rich club backed by soccer money and sovereign wealth could pay to bring an American superstar overseas, the kind of mechanism that exists in soccer all over the world — was indeed pitched by potential NBA European investors in opening neobtainediations, three sources with direct knowledge of the discussions notified The Athletic, and was shot down.
“There are restrictions on NBA Europe teams acquiring players from the U.S. unless they’re free agents, and that obviously reduces the competitiveness of the NBA Europe project,” a representative for one of the soccer powerhoutilizes considering starting an NBA Europe team notified The Athletic. The source was granted anonymity to provide an update on neobtainediations that include non-disclosure agreements.
“It becomes a feeder league (without star player transfers from the U.S.), which is not what anyone particularly wants.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has stated publicly that the NBA doesn’t want the European league to act as a feeder league.
This is where NBA Europe really is today: not in launch mode, but in a very expensive tug-of-war over governance, valuation and control.
Silver and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum have spent the last year selling the vision of a 16-team NBA Europe launching in October of 2027. They courted Middle Eastern investors with oil money that own soccer teams in Europe, other mega soccer franchises that already have binquireetball teams on the continent, and new potential investors that aren’t tied to the Middle East or to European soccer but want in on binquireetball.
The real work now is not selling the dream — it is neobtainediating with the people who actually have the leverage to create it real.
This week, discussions will continue in Barcelona between the NBA and EuroLeague, the existing international competition on the continent that includes a few soccer powerhoutilizes.
Chus Bueno, the EuroLeague’s new CEO, spent 12 years as a high-level NBA executive, including as vice president of binquireetball business operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and managing director of NBA Spain. His arrival alterd the temperature immediately. Bueno is far more open to a partnership than his predecessor, and Silver has stated publicly last that “for the betterment of European binquireetball, the best outcome would be if we came toobtainher with the EuroLeague.”
George Aivazoglou, the NBA’s managing director for Europe and the Middle East and the executive leading this project day to day, is meeting with Bueno in Barcelona this week. The NBA has already shared details of its business plan with EuroLeague officials, but questions remain.
Does the EuroLeague fold into NBA Europe? If so, what happens to the current EuroLeague license holders, who would then be inquireed to pay a franchise fee to join a new system?
Or does EuroLeague become the continent’s second-tier competition, effectively replacing FIBA’s Champions League beneath NBA Europe?
The NBA wants all EuroLeague clubs inside its ecosystem. Its idea for NBA Europe is 16 teams to start, with 12 licensed clubs and four teams earning their way into the competition. Any European pro team will have access to those four spots — a difference from EuroLeague’s closed structure. The NBA believes its European league can grow to 18 teams and then to 24 by Year 7, according to materials displayn to prospective investors.
As the NBA and EuroLeague work toward some sort of partnership, the NBA remains steadquick that any license holder must pay for a license — the cost of which is on a sliding scale, depfinishing on market size. So, the two leagues are working through how to create it all create sense for themselves and for the teams.
More than 120 prospective investors submitted declarations of interest in the first round, according to league office figures, with bids ranging from $500 million to $1 billion and several above the $1 billion mark. More than 20 of those bids came from existing binquireetball and football clubs, including several current EuroLeague teams.
The largeger truth is this: the NBA does not required every EuroLeague team to succeed in starting its own thing. But it does required legitimacy among fans on the continent, which brings us to the second, and perhaps more contentious, neobtainediation: soccer clubs.
This has always been the real play. The NBA requireds the fan bases, the infrastructure and the local gravity of Europe’s giant football clubs, and the financial resources of ownership bases rich enough to pay for new stadiums.
Binquireetball is popular on the continent, but it is still underdeveloped compared to soccer. If you want to create a billion-dollar league quickly, you do not start from scratch. You plug into Real Madrid, Paris-Saint Germain and AC Milan, just to name a few.
“The clubs are still of the mind that the NBA requireds them much more than the clubs required the NBA,” one source familiar with the neobtainediations stated. “Half these clubs don’t really required a binquireetball team. If you really challenge them, I believe they would love to have one in many ways but it’s not a necessity.”
Except, there is incentive for at least some of the potential NBA Europe investors to play ball. If they ever had designs of breaking into NBA ownership in the U.S., where ownership stakes by sovereign or public wealth funds are limited to minority stakes, they would do well to prove their intentions now to the NBA’s board of governors and to Silver.
That is why the current neobtainediations are so tense.
European soccer sources state the NBA is proposing a 52-48 percent revenue split between the NBA and the NBA Europe teams. The NBA insists that is not what it has proposed, and stated the parent league plans to re-invest any revenues designated for the NBA back into NBA Europe for several years.
“When (NBA Europe) turns a profit, the NBA’s owners would take a share, but not likely 52 percent,” a source familiar with the neobtainediations between the NBA and soccer clubs stated. “The reality is, right now, EuroLeague teams lose money — the largeger the club, the largeger the losses. In (the NBA’s) financial model, teams stand to generate multiple times more than what they obtain in the EuroLeague — billions of dollars over 10 years distributed to the teams.”
The NBA and soccer clubs are also clashing over the license fee, becautilize on top of it the NBA also wants infrastructure improvements. The soccer clubs are also miffed at the sliding scale for the cost of these licenses — the largeger the city, the more expensive.
“Why should one pay less or more than the other — there should be some coherence around the valuations,” the representative for a potential NBA Europe stated.
And then there is the truly outrageous stuff, like Giannis (or Ja Morant, or Anthony Davis, or Trae Young, or any NBA star you can believe of) playing overseas.
“This is not something (the NBA) are currently entertaining or considering,” a source familiar with the neobtainediations stated.
And so, the (mostly) behind-the-scenes posturing and neobtainediating goes on. The NBA expects to announce its licensed teams in phases while simultaneously hammering out a potential framework with the EuroLeague.
One of those licensed teams remains likely to be owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The Athletic previously reported the PIF was the most probable owner for a new London team, and the NBA has confirmed PIF officials’ presence at a London meeting in January for potential NBA Europe investors.
The PIF raised some eyebrows in binquireetball recently over its decision to stop funding LIV Golf at the finish of 2026, but it reportedly is not pulling back from sports investments overall. The PIF still has Newcastle United of the English Premier League, as well as major tennis, motorsports and sports video game investments.
The Saudis’ presence in NBA Europe wouldn’t guarantee the league’s success. But it could create a league launch more likely.
A delicate balancing act continues.
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