Approximately one in six NBA players is European.
The league will offer both permanent spots and “a merit-based path” to qualify annually.
The NBA and FIBA announced Monday that they will begin the consultation process with teams and owners about the possibility of joining their new European league, scheduled for next month.
As anticipated, the league will offer both permanent spots and “a merit-based path” to annual qualification through the FIBA Basketball Champions League or an end-of-season tournament, the parties said. Each team belonging to a FIBA-affiliated European league will have the opportunity to qualify.
“The league format respects the principles of the European sports model by providing any ambitious club on the continent a fair path to the top,” said FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis.
Many details of the new league have yet to be formally defined, including the start date — with a tentative goal of October 2027 — and the number of teams that will participate in that inaugural season. Among the models explored by the NBA and FIBA is a 16-team league, with 12 “permanent” spots and the other four available through qualification.
The parties have been talking about a European league for several years, and there is no shortage of big NBA stars currently hailing from that continent, such as Denver’s Nikola Jokic, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama, Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic and Utah’s Lauri Markkanen. Approximately one in six NBA players is European.
Efforts to launch the new league appeared to intensify around the 2024 Paris Olympics. Earlier this year, Zagklis and Silver sat together at a news conference in New York to announce that the NBA and FIBA were moving forward with the project. Since then, efforts have progressed rapidly, bringing in JPMorgan and the Raine Group this summer to advise on specific financial aspects.
“Our conversations with various stakeholders in Europe have reinforced our belief that there is a tremendous opportunity in creating a new league on the continent,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
Current target countries for the NBA-FIBA project include Great Britain (with possible venues in London and Manchester), France (Paris and Lyon), Spain (Madrid and Barcelona), Italy (Rome and Milan), Germany (Munich and Berlin), Greece (Athens) and Turkey (Istanbul).
The NBA has a pair of regular-season games scheduled in Europe in mid-January, with the Memphis Grizzlies and Orlando Magic visiting Berlin and London for those games. This content was made with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed by the editor/journalist.
