Inside NBA Europe’s $10bn plan as clubs line up

The NBA’s long-discussed European expansion is taking a major step forward, and the scale of the project is turning heads across sport. With a revised launch now targeted for 2028, NBA Europe is being built as a $10bn venture that could reshape the continent’s basketball landscape and pull in some of football’s biggest power players.

A delayed launch, but bigger ambition

The league, originally expected earlier, has been pushed back by 12 months. That delay has not cooled interest, though, because the NBA is still planning to create a 16-team competition made up of 12 permanent franchises and four annual temporary spots.

According to the reported structure, those four rotating places will come through a pre-qualifying system next year. That means NBA Europe is set to combine fixed membership with a pathway for ambitious clubs to force their way in, a model that mirrors the modern tension between exclusivity and open competition.

Why Europe is such a big prize

The financial scale tells its own story. The NBA is understood to be ready to invest about $10bn over 10 years, a figure that underlines how seriously it is treating the continent. Franchise prices are expected to vary widely, with London’s entry ticket reportedly starting at $500m and rising beyond $1bn in some bids.

That has attracted heavyweight interest from outside traditional basketball circles. Some of the bids are believed to be backed by owners linked to Champions League football clubs, reflecting how deeply the project has cut through European sport’s elite business network.

Football power brokers circle the project

Talks have already included executives from Barcelona, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Milan. The common thread is obvious: these are clubs used to operating at the top of global sport, and NBA Europe offers another way to expand reach, commercial value and influence.

London appears to be the most eye-catching franchise market. Bidders reportedly include former Chelsea chair Todd Boehly, a consortium featuring former Tottenham chair Daniel Levy and MSP Sports Capital, plus Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

Manchester is also drawing attention. Buss Sports Capital, the American investment group that recently sold its 17.8% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to Joshua Kushner, is believed to have submitted an offer. City Football Group, despite its strong ties to the NBA, has not entered the bidding process.

What the NBA says it wants

Mark Tatum, the NBA deputy commissioner, has made clear that the league is looking for more than money. “We’ve got people who are well-capitalised investors who don’t own any basketball franchise, but they want to get into basketball,” he said at the European Football Clubs general assembly.

He added that the NBA also wants established basketball clubs and football-backed projects to be part of the mix. “Our vision for basketball is to bring everybody with us – EuroLeague, the governing body, Fiba, and the clubs – to revamp the European basketball scene,” Tatum said.

That statement captures the central pitch: NBA Europe is not just a new competition, but a reworking of how basketball is structured across the continent.

Promotion, access and the Super League shadow

The proposed format inevitably invites comparisons with football’s failed European Super League. The difference, at least in theory, is that NBA Europe is promising a clearer route in and out for ambitious clubs, even if the 12 permanent places make the competition feel semi-closed.

Under the latest concept, two teams would qualify from a new second-tier European competition, the Basketball Champions League, while two more would emerge from a tournament for domestic champions. On top of that, the highest-ranked non-franchise club reaching the end-of-season playoffs would retain its place for the next campaign.

That structure could create regular movement around the league’s outer edge, but the centre would remain protected. For some investors, that is a feature, not a flaw.

“The Super League may be dead for now, but it’s not difficult to imagine a world where the biggest clubs demand permanent qualification,” one senior source said.

Resistance from basketball’s existing order

Not everyone is convinced. At a meeting in Lake Como, EuroLeague clubs voted to reject the NBA’s initial investment offer and instead pursue their own expansion from 20 to 24 clubs. The NBA insists talks will continue, but the pushback shows there is still plenty of tension around who controls the future of European basketball.

There are also practical questions. The NBA wants partner clubs to help invest in academies and indoor arenas, areas where Europe still lags behind North America. Tatum has repeatedly stressed that the league sees itself as an infrastructure builder as much as a competition organiser.

“These arenas provide an economic engine to cities,” he said. “That is the investment that we’re looking to create.”

Why Manchester and London matter most

Manchester could become one of the clearest symbols of the project’s crossover ambition. The likely venue is the 23,000-capacity Co-op Live, one of the city’s biggest arenas, and a regular-season NBA game between the San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans is already scheduled there in January.

London, meanwhile, remains the crown jewel. A franchise there would immediately give NBA Europe commercial gravity, global visibility and a natural bridge to sponsors, broadcasters and new fan bases.

The next major milestone is expected later this year, when the NBA hopes to reveal the identity of the franchise owners. If the reported bids hold and the league structure survives the political wrangling, NBA Europe could emerge as one of the most ambitious sports launches in recent memory.

For now, the project sits at a fascinating crossroads: backed by huge money, fuelled by elite interest and shadowed by old arguments about access, power and control. The countdown to 2028 has already begun.