The Magic and Grizzlies played in the 2026 NBA Berlin Game.
The future arrives faster than we think.
Fast-forward to fall 2027: the NBA is planning to launch the inaugural NBA Europe season.
On opening night of the proposed new league, envision this: A team from Paris will play a team from Madrid. The following night, a team from Milan will face a team from Munich and a team from Istanbul will play a team from London.
In all, 16 teams – 12 permanent franchises and four annual qualifiers – plan to participate in the proposed league in partnership with FIBA, basketball’s world governing organization. Bids for the 12 teams were due at the end of June, and the NBA reportedly received several bids within and exceeding the $500 million to $1 billion range in each of its 12 target cities.
Teams are expected to come from existing basketball and soccer clubs as well as entirely new franchises.
“We’ve had tremendous interest from multiple cities in Europe, including cities that we didn’t even ask for bids from,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday at the Board of Governors meetings in Las Vegas. “We discussed with our board that we’re in the process of finalizing those bids for an initial group of cities. Many of the people who are involved in those bids, the European bidders, are actually going to be in New York for the World Cup final on Sunday.”
“Given their presence in New York, I would say we’re hoping to wrap up some of those deals over the next several weeks, and then announcements will be forthcoming.”
Commissioner Adam Silver addressed a variety of topics, including NBA expansion into Europe, on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
Target cities include Athens, Greece; Barcelona, Spain; Berlin, Germany; Istanbul, Turkey; London, England; Lyon, France; Madrid, Spain; Manchester, England; Milan, Italy; Munich, Germany; Paris, France; and Rome, Italy. There are basketball-rich cities on that list, but also major European cities without permanent high-level basketball, including London, Milan and Rome.
NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum, who is leading the project, said in a statement two weeks ago: “We’re extremely encouraged by the final bids we received for permanent franchises in the new NBA and FIBA-backed league in Europe, which reflects the tremendous interest and momentum around this project. This will be the biggest influx of capital European basketball has ever seen, and we have clear frontrunners in each of our 12 target cities including many existing basketball and football clubs. We will now work with the NBA and FIBA Boards to finalize the long-term agreements.”
The NBA has built success with the other leagues: the WNBA, the NBA G League and the Basketball Africa League, which launched in 2021.
The proposed new league in Europe plans to align its calendar with domestic leagues and national team competitions, allowing players to compete for their club teams in both domestic league and NBA Europe as well as for national teams in all international competitions. While providing operational, commercial and fan engagement expertise, NBA Europe wants to maintain and celebrate European basketball traditions and atmosphere.
“I recognize there’s enormous history and tradition here in European basketball, and we want to respect those traditions,” Silver said in January 2025 at the NBA Paris Games.
The NBA and FIBA met with EuroLeague leadership last month, and the NBA continues to pursue a constructive, collaborative and aligned outcome across the entire European ecosystem.
Silver on Tuesday said, “We began on this path saying that our plan was to go forward regardless of where the EuroLeague stood. 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.”
The NBA is bullish on the opportunity for European basketball. Basketball is one of the fastest-growing sports in Europe and the No. 2 sport behind soccer with more than 270 million fans on the continent.
A record-71 European players were on NBA opening-night rosters for the 2025-26 season, and there is growing demand for NBA content in Europe.
Amazon Prime Video reported for the 2025-26 season a 129% year-over-year increase in NBA viewership and the most-watched NBA Finals in Europe since 2016 – thanks in part to San Antonio Spurs forward-center and Frenchman Victor Wembanyama. Denver’s Nikola Jokić, Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Dončić and Miami’s Giannis Antetokounmpo have also helped increase interest and popularity in Europe.
San Antonio and New Orleans will play two regular-season games in Europe in 2027 – in Paris on Jan. 14 and Manchester on Jan. 17.
The NBA has been moving toward this for nearly two years and sees an opportunity not only for financial growth but for increased fandom as well as the development of the entire European basketball ecosystem, including clubs, domestic leagues and grassroots.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity with our partners, FIBA, to really change the landscape of European basketball, and that’s what we’re hoping to do,” Tatum said at a roundtable chat during All-Star Weekend in February. “I want to make it very, very clear that there’s been a lot of discussion around the format, the finances and the structure and all that. What we want to do is make European basketball as good as it can be, as strong as it can be, both from a product, competitive standpoint, as well as from a commercial standpoint.
“We want this to be beneficial for the entire ecosystem – for the players, for the fans, and for the teams. That’s what our primary objective is here, and we’re very excited about those plans and moving forward there. The other thing I think that is so important for us and what we think this new league will do is when you create commercial opportunities for these clubs to grow, they will reinvest back in basketball, back in infrastructure development, (and) back in grassroots development.”
* * *
Jeff Zillgitt has covered the NBA since 2008. You can email him at jzillgitt@nba.com, find his archive here and follow him on X.
