{"id":1920453,"date":"2026-05-06T09:15:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T06:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1920453"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T06:15:18","slug":"nba-stars-playing-in-europe-instead-of-u-s-thats-what-soccer-giants-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1920453","title":{"rendered":"NBA stars playing in Europe instead of U.S.? That\u2019s what soccer giants want"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The first time a powerful European soccer club asked the NBA if, in two years, it might be allowed to buy one of the league\u2019s stars for NBA Europe, the answer was immediate.<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

Imagine it: A rich, powerful, proper football conglomerate overseas starts a basketball team. It picks up the phone and dials the Milwaukee Bucks, who, for the sake of argument, are having a rough season. The club says, hey, here\u2019s a couple hundred million dollars, or whatever it may cost, how about Giannis Antetokounmpo coming to play for us in NBA Europe?<\/p>\n

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The idea \u2014 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<\/a>, the kind of mechanism that exists in soccer all over the world \u2014 was indeed pitched by potential NBA European investors in opening negotiations, three sources with direct knowledge of the discussions told The Athletic,<\/em> and was shot down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are restrictions on NBA Europe teams acquiring players from the U.S. unless they\u2019re free agents, and that obviously reduces the competitiveness of the NBA Europe project,\u201d a representative for one of the soccer powerhouses considering starting an NBA Europe team told The Athletic<\/em>. The source was granted anonymity to provide an update on negotiations that include non-disclosure agreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes a feeder league (without star player transfers from the U.S.), which is not what anyone particularly wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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NBA commissioner Adam 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 basketball teams on the continent, and new potential investors that aren\u2019t tied to the Middle East or to European soccer but want in on basketball.<\/p>\n

The real work now is not selling the dream \u2014 it is negotiating with the people who actually have the leverage to make it real.<\/p>\n

This week, discussions will continue in Barcelona between the NBA and EuroLeague, the existing international competition on the continent that includes a few soccer powerhouses.<\/p>\n

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Chus Bueno, the EuroLeague\u2019s new CEO, spent 12 years as a high-level NBA executive, including as vice president of basketball business operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and managing director of NBA Spain. His arrival changed the temperature immediately. Bueno is far more open to a partnership than his predecessor, and Silver has said publicly last that \u201cfor the betterment of European basketball, the best outcome would be if we came together with the EuroLeague.\u201d<\/p>\n

George Aivazoglou, the NBA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Does the EuroLeague fold into NBA Europe? If so, what happens to the current EuroLeague license holders, who would then be asked to pay a franchise fee to join a new system?<\/p>\n

Or does EuroLeague become the continent\u2019s second-tier competition, effectively replacing FIBA\u2019s Champions League beneath NBA Europe?<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 a difference from EuroLeague\u2019s closed structure. The NBA thinks its European league can grow to 18 teams and then to 24 by Year 7, according to materials shown to prospective investors.<\/p>\n

As the NBA and EuroLeague work toward some sort of partnership, the NBA remains steadfast that any license holder must pay for a license \u2013 the cost of which is on a sliding scale, depending on market size. So, the two leagues are working through how to make it all make sense for themselves and for the teams.<\/p>\n

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More than 120 prospective investors submitted declarations of interest in the first round<\/a>, 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 basketball and football clubs, including several current EuroLeague teams.<\/p>\n

The bigger truth is this: the NBA does not need every EuroLeague team to succeed in starting its own thing. But it does need legitimacy among fans on the continent, which brings us to the second, and perhaps more contentious, negotiation: soccer clubs.<\/p>\n

This has always been the real play. The NBA needs the fan bases, the infrastructure and the local gravity of Europe\u2019s giant football clubs, and the financial resources of ownership bases rich enough to pay for new stadiums.<\/p>\n

Basketball 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clubs are still of the mind that the NBA needs them much more than the clubs need the NBA,\u201d one source familiar with the negotiations said. \u201cHalf these clubs don\u2019t really need a basketball team. If you really challenge them, I think they would love to have one in many ways but it\u2019s not a necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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\u2019s board of governors and to Silver.<\/p>\n

That is why the current negotiations are so tense.<\/p>\n

European soccer sources say 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 said the parent league plans to re-invest any revenues designated for the NBA back into NBA Europe for several years.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen (NBA Europe) turns a profit, the NBA\u2019s owners would take a share, but not likely 52 percent,\u201d a high-ranking NBA official said. \u201cThe reality is, right now, EuroLeague teams lose money \u2013 the bigger the club, the bigger the losses. In our financial model, teams stand to generate multiple times more than what they get in the EuroLeague \u2013 billions of dollars over 10 years distributed to the teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NBA and soccer clubs are also clashing over the license fee, because 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 \u2013 the bigger the city, the more expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should one pay less or more than the other \u2013 there should be some coherence around the valuations,\u201d the representative for a potential NBA Europe said.<\/p>\n

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 think of) playing overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not something we are currently entertaining or considering,\u201d a high-ranking NBA official said.<\/p>\n

And so, the (mostly) behind-the-scenes posturing and negotiating goes on. The NBA expects to announce its licensed teams in phases while simultaneously hammering out a potential framework with the EuroLeague.<\/p>\n

One of those licensed teams remains likely to be owned by Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund. The Athletic<\/em> previously reported the PIF was the most probable owner for a new London team<\/a>, and the NBA has confirmed PIF officials\u2019 presence at a London meeting in January for potential NBA Europe investors.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

The PIF raised some eyebrows in basketball recently over its decision to stop funding LIV Golf at the end 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.<\/p>\n

The Saudis\u2019 presence in NBA Europe wouldn\u2019t guarantee the league\u2019s success. But it could make a league launch more likely.<\/p>\n

A delicate balancing act continues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first time a powerful European soccer club asked the NBA if, in two years, it might be allowed to buy one of the league\u2019s stars for NBA Europe, the answer was immediate. No. Imagine it: A rich, powerful, proper football conglomerate overseas starts a basketball team. It picks up the phone and dials the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1920453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1920453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1920453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1920453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1920453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}