LAS VEGAS -- NBA Europe will intensify talks this weekend with ownership groups from possibly Spain, France and England, all of whom are expected to be in N.Y. for the World Cup.
During his Board of Governors news conference Tuesday night, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum will meet in-person with several bidders while they’re in the country and added, “I would say we’re hoping to wrap up some of those deals over the next several weeks, and then announcements will be forthcoming.”
While Silver did not name the teams, the possibility exists that two EuroLeague franchises -- Real Madrid from Spain and Asvel from Lyon, France -- as well as representatives from Paris-Saint Germain and Manchester City could be involved in the talks. Spain, France and England are all playing in the World Cup semi-finals, with the final slated for MetLife Stadium.
Any meeting with a EuroLeague franchise would carry significant weight. The NBA, FIBA and EuroLeague have been engaged in ongoing talks about a merger -- with both sides preferring to align but also willing to move on without each other. On the other hand, Real Madrid, Asvel and Fenerbahçe are all EuroLeague franchises that have reportedly made bids to enter NBA Europe. And, if their bids are accepted, it could either escalate the merger or disrupt EuroLeague entirely.
“We began on this path saying that our plan was to go forward regardless of where the EuroLeague stood,” Silver said Tuesday night. “But it was always our hope that we would be able to create some sort of consolidation of European basketball. I remain optimistic that we are going to be able to accomplish that.
“Chus Bueno, who is now running the EuroLeague, is a friend and a former colleague at the NBA. He’s doing his job, of course, in representing those clubs and that organization. Mark Tatum and I continue to have back and forth with him…It’s very understandable what he wants in these discussions, and that’s to preserve the value created by the EuroLeague over the years."
Bueno, who used to oversee the NBA’s basketball ops in Europe and at the time worked personally alongside Tatum, has said if the two leagues merge, he’d want all 13 EuroLeague franchises to join NBA Europe en masse. But because the NBA’s fledgling league -- due to launch in October 2027 -- will only have 12 permanent teams, a full merger is impossible. But the sides could get creative and have several EuroLeague teams play in another European league such as the Basketball Champions League (BCL) until NBA Europe expands.
In the near term, Silver and Co. have to sort out the bids that exist, all of them between $500M and $1B in their 12 target cities. On Tuesday, the NBA’s Board of Governors were updated on the bids that closed at the end of June.
“We’re not at the point of binding bids yet,” Silver said. “Those, I would call them initial expressions of interest. Again, complete with financial information. But I think everybody understood that once those initial bids came in, there would need to be ongoing discussions before we got to the point where we actually had binding agreements. So we are not at that point yet.”
