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In recent years, European basketball has conquered the NBA. Top players from Greece and Serbia have gobbled up MVP awards and championships. And when the Los Angeles Lakers made the most stunning trade in league history this year, it was for a star from Slovenia.

Now, the NBA is aiming to conquer Europe. Commissioner Adam Silver is planning to start a league on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean—all in a bid to open up new revenue streams for America’s most globally popular league.

“In virtually every country or territory around the world, basketball is the No. 1 or No. 2 sport,” said deputy commissioner Mark Tatum. “By definition, our biggest growth opportunities are outside the United States.”

But the NBA isn’t heading into uncharted territory. Europe already has a slew of domestic leagues and the well-established EuroLeague, which has crowned the continent’s basketball champions—and exported future NBA superstars such as Luka Doncic—for the past 25 years.

Ahead of this trans-Atlantic showdown, EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas has said that his league would prefer to cooperate with the NBA on a possible joint venture. If the NBA insists on starting a second operation, however, then the EuroLeague is prepared to dig in for a fight, Motiejunas said.

The NBA has expressed openness to working with the EuroLeague but believes the existing framework hasn’t made the most of a substantial business opportunity.

“Where we are in terms of the level of interest in basketball in Europe is not commensurate with the commercial activities,” Silver said last year.

In recent days, Silver and Tatum toured Europe, meeting with, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, representatives of Abu Dhabi’s department of culture and tourism, and Spanish sports powerhouse Real Madrid, where Doncic once played. To prove that it is serious about moving quickly, the NBA has also retained JPMorgan and the Raine Group to advise on league structures and secure investment.

The proposed league, organized by the NBA and the International Basketball Federation, would include 14 to 16 teams, including a combination of existing basketball powers and new franchises in major European cities. It would launch in the next two to three years, pending approval from FIBA and the NBA’s Board of Governors.

Crucially, the European project might also open up a potential for the NBA to do business with a new type of investor: uber-wealthy foreign states. Whereas sovereign-wealth funds are currently permitted to be only minority partners in the NBA, they could be allowed to take on controlling stakes of franchises in the European venture. Franchise fees will be between $500 million and $1 billion.

“Ownership rules haven’t been finalized,” Tatum said. “But we’re certainly contemplating potential primary ownership by sovereign-wealth funds.”

Those groups have already reshaped European soccer over the past two decades, helping push former also-ran clubs to unprecedented glory. Paris Saint-Germain, which won the Champions League for the first time in May, is owned by Qatar Sports Investments, for instance.

The San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers played two games in Paris last season. Photo: stephanie lecocq/Reuters

But no matter who ends up owning the European franchises, the NBA expects the teams to be more profitable than what’s currently in place. Rabid supporters pour into arenas, but many of Europe’s largest cities don’t yet have permanent teams in the top tier of international competition—and many of the best teams, such as Real Madrid and Barcelona, are run as appendages to soccer behemoths.

Motiejunas, who said that two-thirds of EuroLeague teams lose money, said the way to boost revenue was for the EuroLeague and the NBA to join forces. But he found the asking price for new franchises ambitious.

“Football is the number one sport in Europe—[even] Premier League clubs don’t sell for this much,” Motiejunas said, referencing soccer teams in England’s top division.

The NBA envisions new franchises in markets like London, Paris and Rome. But historic attempts to meddle with the infrastructure of European sports haven’t always gone smoothly. Soccer’s proposed European Super League—a breakaway organization of a dozen wealthy teams—was met with widespread uproar in 2021 and folded in just 48 hours.

Motiejunas also warned that building a fan base in European cities is not as simple as designing a new logo.

“Fathers and grandfathers hand down jerseys of the team you support,” he said. “It would be really, really difficult to change their minds.”

Though the NBA anticipates some hurt feelings from clubs and fan bases not given permanent spots, it plans to allow for merit-based qualification for open slots in the league—a distinction from the opaque qualification systems for the existing EuroLeague.

“We want to bring the entire basketball ecosystem together in Europe,” Tatum said, “and we think that this approach is the best way to do that.”