NBA vs. Europe: Clubs Offered a Fortune. They Said No.
The NBA wants to build a league in Europe and has the money to do it. On 6 October, Europe’s thirteen biggest basketball clubs turned the offer down. The reason has little to do with sport, and everything to do with a question Indian sport has never really been asked.
The NBA and FIBA are building a sixteen-team European league — twelve permanent franchises and four merit places. Every target city drew bids above USD 500m.
EuroLeague’s thirteen shareholder clubs rejected the merger on 6 October, then approved their own ten-year plan nine days later.
Both sides now want a closed league. They disagree only about who owns it — and EuroLeague closed its own ladder back in 2019-20.
European club basketball is not small. The EuroLeague drew 3,251,706 spectators last season — a record, up 8%. Its average crowd is second only to the NBA’s among professional basketball leagues anywhere in the world. So this is not a rich league rescuing a poor one. It is a fight over who owns a business that already works.
In March 2025 the NBA and FIBA, basketball’s world governing body, announced they would build a new European league together. The design is specific, and the specificity matters later: sixteen teams — twelve permanent franchises that can never be relegated, and four places won on merit each year. Twelve cities. Launch targeted for October 2027.
Then they went looking for buyers. Every one of the twelve target cities drew bids of USD 500m (INR 4,748 cr) or more. London drew several above USD 1,000m (INR 9,495 cr). More than twenty ownership groups filed by the June deadline. The NBA has reportedly committed USD 3,000m (INR 28,485 cr) to cover early losses.
Twelve franchises at the floor is USD 6,000m. At the top of the range, USD 12,000m (INR 1,13,940 cr). The NBA then offered EuroLeague a merger. On 6 October its thirteen shareholder clubs voted no. Nine days later they approved a rival ten-year plan of their own.
Why refuse that much money?
Three reasons.
The price. EuroLeague wanted a valuation of at least USD 3,000m. One person briefed on the talks said the offer “wasn’t even close to that.”
The conditions. The NBA reportedly wanted EuroLeague to stop expanding. Expansion is how EuroLeague plans to pay its members.
Control. Jordi Bertomeu built EuroLeague and ran it for twenty-two years. On 22 October he said that under the NBA’s terms clubs “would give up control over their own future” and “will not be able to change anything.” He also conceded the commercial point, which makes the quote more useful: “I have no doubt that the NBA could do an extraordinary commercial job.”
This is not an argument about whether the NBA can make more money. Everyone agrees it can. It is an argument about who the money belongs to afterwards.
EuroLeague’s answer: grow the asset 5.7× in ten years
| Measure | Today | Under the plan |
|---|---|---|
| League value | USD 1,586m (INR 15,064 cr) | USD 8,978m (INR 85,245 cr) — 5.7× |
| Paid to clubs, per year | USD 79m (INR 750 cr) | USD 383m (INR 3,636 cr) — 4.9× |
| Total distributed over ten years | — | USD 3,825m (INR 36,319 cr) |
| Clubs currently financially sustainable | 40% | All, by the end of phase one |
The most damaging number here was published voluntarily. EuroLeague conceded that 60% of its clubs do not cover their own costs — because a plan an investor could audit was worth more than a clean story they could not.
Why twelve permanent franchises and not sixteen?
This detail tells you what the NBA’s lawyers think, and it has had very little coverage. Article 165 of the EU treaty requires the Union to promote “fairness and openness” in sport. In practice that has meant sporting merit has to count for something.
Guillermo Íñiguez, a legal scholar at Oxford, tested the NBA-FIBA plan against that standard. A fully closed American-style league with no promotion or relegation, he concluded, would “unequivocally breach EU law.” Twelve permanent franchises plus four merit qualifiers “would likely comply, provided it stays sufficiently open.”
The format is not a sporting choice. It is a legal one. Europe’s “fairness and openness” principle bought European basketball exactly four promotion places.
And here is the uncomfortable part for the incumbent. EuroLeague is not defending an open pyramid. Since 2019-20 there has been no direct route into the EuroLeague from any domestic league at all. Thirteen clubs hold long-term licences, and those same thirteen vote on who else may enter. Then on 6 October they voted to convert their licences into permanent franchises.
Both sides now want a closed league. They disagree only about who owns it.
The whole bet rests on 2% of a market
The growth rates are excellent. Amazon reported NBA viewership in Europe up 129%, and EuroLeague’s live audience rose 82% across twenty-five rounds. But a percentage is not a number, and the base is small.
The two sides cannot even agree how many fans exist. The NBA claims 270 million basketball fans in Europe. EuroLeague’s own chief executive puts it at around 65 million, with a hardcore of “a little over 10 million.” That four-fold gap is the whole argument in one number.
Abu Dhabi is funding both sides
Turkish Airlines sponsored the EuroLeague for about fifteen years, and walked away after the 2025 season. The competition has had no title sponsor since. The incumbent’s longest commercial relationship ended before any of this resolved, which is the clearest market signal in the story.
Who filled the gap? DCT Abu Dhabi and Etihad Airways became EuroLeague main partners in September 2025 on four-year deals. Abu Dhabi hosted the 2025 Final Four for a reported USD 25m (INR 237 cr). And the NBA renewed its own agreement with DCT Abu Dhabi in January 2026, hosts pre-season games there, and runs its centralised global academy there. Dubai Basketball now plays in the EuroLeague. Whoever wins, the Gulf is already in the building.
The fans have not been heard from
In April 2021, twelve football clubs launched a European Super League. Organised supporters destroyed it in seventy-two hours. Twenty months later the European Court of Justice ruled the competition they had tried to launch was largely legally defensible. So the law has moved in favour of breakaways. The thing that actually killed the last one has not appeared.
We looked for the fan response and could not find one. No statement from any organised basketball supporters’ group, members’ body or socio association on NBA Europe. No official position from the Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Greek or Lithuanian domestic leagues — the five competitions whose marquee clubs are being targeted. No complaint or proceeding at any EU institution. Either the fan voice has not mobilised the way football’s did, or it has not been asked.
And the clubs being asked to leave are not ordinary companies. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern and Fenerbahçe all share ownership with their football sides. Barcelona’s basketball team is a section of a members’ club. Meanwhile PSG, AC Milan and Manchester City are bidding for basketball franchises in cities where their football clubs have no basketball tradition at all.
One number shows what the domestic leagues stand to lose. The entire Greek Basket League turns over about USD 17m (INR 160 cr) a year. Panathinaikos’s player payroll alone is about USD 30m (INR 286 cr). One club is nearly twice the size of its own league.
The India read
The takeaway is not that the NBA is coming here next. It is three uncomfortable mirrors.
India has already run Europe’s argument, and settled it by administration rather than law. The ISL and I-League promotion question is the same one being litigated in Brussels. Europe is paying lawyers and risking clubs to arrive at twelve-plus-four. India reached a similar structure by federation decision. We have no “fairness and openness” principle in law — which is a freedom and a liability at once.
The pipeline promise has a long Indian record to test it against. The NBA has been here since 2011 — an office, a brand ambassador, Hindi commentary on 112 games, and more than 100 million unique viewers by 2022-23. It opened NBA Academy India in Noida in 2017 and confirmed in March 2024 that it was closing, without naming a replacement facility. Its flagship graduate, Princepal Singh, played four G League games averaging 2.3 points, was injured in 2022, joined a New Zealand team that folded before he debuted, and last played six games in the Mongolian League in October 2025.
Deputy commissioner Mark Tatum is promising Europe “the biggest influx of capital European basketball has ever seen.” India is the long-running test of that promise, and the academy here is shut.
India quietly lost free-to-air NBA. The league moved from Sports18, JioCinema and DD Sports to Amazon Prime Video alone from October 2025. We could not find an India viewership figure published since the 2022-23 season. A global rights deal that is excellent for the NBA traded away Indian reach, and Indian disclosure with it.
For anyone building a property here that depends on a global league’s local attention: you are a line item in someone else’s rights cycle. When the cycle turns, your distribution goes with it. So does your data.
Disclosure is a capital-raising instrument, not a compliance cost. EuroLeague’s most damaging number — that 60% of its clubs lose money — was published by EuroLeague, because a plan an investor could audit was worth more than a clean story they could not.
Indian leagues have the inverse instinct: narrate the growth, never publish the base.
The question for Indian sport
Europe’s clubs are being offered a fortune to give up control, and they are arguing about it in public. Their former chief executive is against it. Their current chief executive wants cooperation. Their members, their domestic leagues and their federations are all in the conversation.
It is messy, slow and probably bad for business in the short term. It is also the sound of a sport that knows who it belongs to.
Indian sport has been sold minority stakes, rights cycles and franchise structures for a decade. Our clubs do not own our leagues. Our fans hold no vote. Our domestic competitions were restructured and announced rather than debated.
When an Indian sporting property is offered the same trade — money for control — who is in the room to argue?
Whether any EuroLeague club formally defects, and whether a single organised supporters’ group puts a position on the record before the October 2027 launch date.