Global basketball governing body FIBA and the US’ prominent NBA competition have announced that in January 2026, they will move forward with the search for teams and ownership groups for their prospective NBA Europe joint venture.
Earlier in 2025, the pair revealed plans to establish a new season club competition in Europe, and will take steps to fill out its roster of permanent member teams in early 2026, with both existing European soccer giants, such as Manchester City and PSG, and prominent investment funds linked to the project.
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Indeed, discussions with investors, arena real developers, existing teams, and prospective commercial partners have already taken place, and will continue throughout this exploratory process.
The NBA and FIBA first announced plans for a new European league in March, and have since then brought in the JP Morgan Chase and Raine Group institutions as strategic advisors.
Within the planned 16-team league would be 12 permanent franchises, with target countries for those teams including the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, and Turkey.
The league will be crafted to fit around the existing European basketball calendar, ensuring sides can compete in both domestic and international competition, and that players can represent both their club and national teams freely.
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By GlobalDataOctober 2027 has already been confirmed as a targeted start date by both NBA and FIBA executives.
Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, has commented: “Our conversations with various stakeholders in Europe have reinforced our belief that an enormous opportunity exists around the creation of a new league on the continent,"
"Together with FIBA, we look forward to engaging prospective clubs and ownership groups that share our vision for the game’s potential in Europe."
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis added: “The format of the league respects European sport model principles by offering any ambitious club in the continent a fair pathway to the top. The project is conceived in a way that will improve the sustainability of the entire European basketball ecosystem, including players, clubs, leagues, and national federations, by generating a knock-on effect that will strongly benefit basketball fans throughout Europe."
Earlier in December, Zagklis confirmed that existing club basketball teams from across Europe will be invited to participate in the NBA Europe project, something that FIBA and NBA have now reaffirmed, stating that there will be a ‘merit-based’ pathway for club sides to qualify, either through the existing Basketball Champions League tournament, or a qualifying play-in competition.
At a FIBA-organized press conference attended by Sportcal (GlobalData Sport), Zagklis said that while consensus and approval will be required from the boards of both FIBA and US basketball’s elite NBA (which is FIBA’s partner in the project), he believes that NBA Europe “will happen”, and that he has “no doubt about it.”
“We are also looking at a model that not only goes through the second-tier league, through the BCL in this case, but also in parallel through a qualification tournament and an end-of-season qualification tournament, collecting champions [of domestic leagues], collecting the next best [ranked teams] from the BCL, we can qualify teams to the top-tier leagues in Europe,” Zagklis explained.
