PARIS — Last year, as the NBA made its nearly annual trip to Europe, league officials took a meeting with its counterparts at the EuroLeague. The NBA was staging a regular-season game in Paris, but the league had its sights set on a bigger footprint on the continent. While the exact details of the talks — which occurred over several sessions — are in dispute, the main aspects are not. According to multiple league sources at the NBA and EuroLeague with knowledge of the conversations, the NBA asked the EuroLeague to partner together on a European basketball league; the EuroLeague rejected the idea.
The EuroLeague, a conglomeration of top European basketball teams that is believed to be the second-best competition in the world, had no interest in ceding control of its operations.
“They wanted the heart and the head,” one prominent EuroLeague executive said.
The NBA has no desire for a partnership that offers them no governance powers or merely as a commercial arm for the EuroLeague, though there was no counter-offer, one person briefed on the meeting said.
If that was a preliminary foray into European basketball, the NBA has acted on its ambitions over the last year. In that time, the NBA has begun working with FIBA to see if it can launch a new standalone basketball league or competition on the continent. As the NBA came back to Paris this week, discussions about those plans have only increased.
While NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday that the league remains in “exploratory” talks about what it would ultimately do, he and other NBA executives met with media companies, potential sponsors and leaders of European clubs this week ahead of two games at Accor Arena between the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers. The NBA intends to bring its own competition to Europe, one league source said, and has found no reason to stop working on it, but has not settled on the format yet.
“We have no agreements in place,” Silver said. ‘We’re not ready to make any additional announcements, and we continue to learn all we can and to see if there is a path to move forward.”
The NBA’s deliberations over the last few months have left European basketball executives wondering what it will eventually do. FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis came to the U.S. in September to address the Board of Governors in person.
While the economics of the sport in Europe are not as rosy as in the United States, with some top teams losing money, there is a belief that the NBA may be able to come in and increase revenue and improve the business model. The NBA believes that too. Silver said Thursday that European basketball has not kept up commercially with how it has grown as a pipeline for NBA talent.
If successful, the NBA’s project could rival or eclipse the EuroLeague and improve its standing on a continent that now produces the very best players in the world. It could also bring another important revenue source for the league as it tries to grow its global business.
But there is also risk. The new league could add more costs for the NBA and its owners but also tarnish its brand or create friction for European fans of existing teams who do not join the NBA’s league or feel slighted by it. It would inevitably put it in conflict with the EuroLeague.
Still, Silver believes that the NBA can bring a new approach to European basketball, along with the heft of its name and reputation. The stakeholders he met with this week, he said, have brought up its cultural relevance as well.
“I think there’s a real appreciation for that, that the NBA is even something a little bit different than basketball, than just pure basketball,” he said. “I think the way to grow the sport is to appeal to people beyond those who are hardcore basketball fans, and that’s where our success has come in the United States and elsewhere. It’s about the NBA brand. I think that the notion we’ve heard back is that if you can bring those elements of the NBA brand and bring those to Europe as part of some structured league potentially, we think there’s a real opportunity.”
The NBA is considering different models as it continues to size up its prospects. It could include new teams that are created for the league. It could bring in existing European teams. Or perhaps a combination of the two. Prominent European soccer clubs may also get involved. The league could draw fees from new clubs and investors, including from the Gulf states.
“Having had this long history from our operation of sports leagues, largely in the United States and a little bit elsewhere, seeing what’s happened in Europe, not just in basketball but in soccer, as well, it gives us the opportunity to say, all right, let’s take a fresh look,” Silver said. “What are the most effective practices for creating a commercially viable league?”
Some EuroLeague teams have expressed interest in potentially working with the NBA. European basketball sources have continuously pointed to Real Madrid as a club that could be interested in defecting to the NBA’s venture.
The league would likely have teams in some of Europe’s most prominent cities: London, Manchester, Berlin, Paris and Munich are among those in consideration, though that is not a full list.
The NBA may also play regular-season games in England and Germany in future years, among other markets on its shortlist, league sources said. No choice has been finalized yet. Silver said this week that the league is not sure it will return to Paris next season, where it has played for three straight years.
There is dissent among European basketball figures about what the NBA’s entry into the sport would mean. Some believe the league would be able to come in and improve the financial conditions for the teams involved and be a marked improvement on the EuroLeague.
“I think the NBA walks into the European business and revenues go up a whole bunch,” one EuroLeague club owner said. “I don’t know how they do that, but they’re experts at it.”
Others are skeptical. The NBA looms as an option for some teams because of the financial struggles of the sport to this point, and whether it can turn them around remains to be seen.
It would also have to contend with the EuroLeague, not just financially, but perhaps for teams and players. One club owner with an open stance to the NBA cautioned that the presence of both leagues could portend trouble for the NBA’s chances of success. There isn’t room for both, he said.
The EuroLeague has taken a confident posture as the NBA circles the territory it has inhabited for decades, both in tone and — its CEO, Paulius Motiejunas, believes — in action.
The EuroLeague recently signed a new agreement with IMG that would continue to retain the company as its commercial arm. Executives from both companies say that the contract will bind its 13 permanent members to the EuroLeague for the duration of the 10-year contract, though the licenses those franchises signed expire after the 2025-26 season. The EuroLeague’s contract with IMG includes opt-out clauses for the teams, though leaders for both the EuroLeague and IMG declined to say how they could be triggered.
“We know that the NBA outside Europe is really strong, and it’s one of the strongest leagues in the world, and definitely the strongest club competition in basketball around the world,” Motiejunas said earlier this month. “So obviously we understand that they are this, and we are ready to sit down, talk, discuss. We’re trying to have this opportunity to think about it. It’s about — I don’t like this word respect — but acknowledging the power that we have created since 2000 when we started and continuously growing. So I don’t see it as a threat. I see it as an opportunity. And we still feel like we are the best and the future is bright.”
What comes next, and how it looks, might soon become clearer.
The NBA will hold a board of governors meeting in March, Silver said, when he will update the 30 team owners on where the project stands. League owners would need to approve of a new league, or whether to go further in trying to put it together.
In Paris, one prominent person already believes that the NBA will soon be here. Former Minnesota Timberwolves general manager David Kahn, who now runs Paris Basket, one of two French EuroLeague teams, believes it will happen.
“In two years, the NBA somehow will be involved in European basketball in a strong, meaningful way,” Khan said in November. “I have no idea how. I have no news. I don’t know what it will look like, but I believe the NBA, in two years, will have a significant stake in European basketball.”
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