The NBA has confirmed plans to explore forming a European league with the assistance of FIBA to build on the success of its Basketball Africa League which debuted in 2021.
Commissioner Adam Silver told members of the media on Thursday “We feel now is the time to move to that next stage…At our board meeting today, there was enthusiastic support from our club owners about continuing to explore this opportunity.”
“It’s early days. Literally nothing has been agreed upon yet,” he concluded.
That being said, the NBA’s board of governors has reason to be optimistic about the venture. With many of the sports top stars hailing from across the Atlantic, creating a domestic pipeline of talent would serve to further elevate the game globally, while also increasing interest in the flagship NBA product as well.
Silver said he expects the European league would include 16 teams, with 12 of them being permanent members. Four other clubs could qualify to play each season via a qualification/relegation system similar to the European soccer model.
Per reports, Silver also made mention of a salary-cap system and creating a system whereby existing NBA owners would possess equity in the league, but not in individual teams.
“Basketball is the No. 2 sport in Europe,” Silver said. “It’s widely popular. Hundreds of millions of fans. Roughly 15 percent of the players in the NBA right now are from Europe. Five out of the last six of our MVPs have been European. But there’s a huge gap, I think, between the amount of interest in the sport and the development in terms of how we operate a league here in North America.”
While talks may still be in the infancy stage, the general consensus is that most owners would be in favour of such a move. No firm timelines for the launch of the European product have been discussed as of yet.
Photo: Ash Carter. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.