CERNOBBIO, Italy, Oct 6 (Reuters) – Europe’s biggest basketball clubs snubbed an offer to team up with the NBA on Tuesday, raising the prospect of a battle for the continent’s top teams, players and commercial riches.
Sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters that the Euroleague’s shareholder clubs rejected a collaboration offer from the NBA, though the door on a deal was not yet closed.
Representatives of the 13 permanent shareholder clubs met near Lake Como, with the NBA proposal dominating discussions about the future of European basketball.
In separate decisions at the meeting, the clubs agreed to convert into franchises but stopped short of formally approving an expansion of the competition from 20 to 24 teams, the Euroleague said in a statement.
The move to a franchise model will give the clubs a more permanent stake in the competition than their existing long-term licences.
A person attending the meeting told Reuters the decision on allocating additional long-term licences would be taken within the next month.
Up to eight could be awarded and the remaining places would be filled through a combination of short-term licences, wildcards and sporting qualification through the BKT EuroCup.
The Euroleague is eager to press ahead with expansion, the source said, turning attention to whether the NBA will submit a revised proposal before those decisions are made.
A senior sports executive told Reuters any collaboration was unlikely to begin before 2028 because it would be difficult to organise a new competition in time for the 2027-28 season.
The Euroleague did not refer to the widely reported NBA offer in its statement but told Reuters last Friday it remained open to collaboration. Although the clubs rejected the current proposal, talks with the NBA could continue.
Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the details of the NBA’s offer, but media reports said it envisaged the NBA’s continental expansion project merging with the Euroleague.
The NBA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NBA Europe’s managing director, George Aivazoglou, is due to speak at a conference in London on Thursday.
FIBA, basketball’s global governing body, said it would not comment at this stage.
The rejection is a significant setback to efforts to combine Europe’s established elite basketball competition with the financial and commercial power of the NBA, which plans to launch a 16-team NBA Europe league in 2027.
SURGE OF INTEREST
The NBA has stepped up its push into Europe amid a surge of interest in the sport, with Euroleague reporting in May an 82% increase in TV viewership through the first 25 regular-season rounds of the 2025-26 campaign.
The NBA has also enjoyed growing momentum on the continent. Streaming deals with providers like Amazon Prime have boosted audiences for the NBA in Europe, while regular-season games in Berlin and London this year highlighted the league’s growing appeal.
Viewership of January’s clash between Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies in London was up 90% compared to the last NBA game there in 2019.
A report from JB Capital commissioned by the Euroleague values the competition at €1.41 billion ($1.59 billion), while the aggregate value of its licensed teams was put at approximately €1.8 billion.
Those figures pale in comparison to the NBA.
The NBA recently surpassed Major League Baseball to become the world’s second-richest sports league, according to Sports Value, a marketing and valuation agency, with upwards of $14 billion in revenue during the 2025-26 season.
The NBA and Euroleague have said throughout this year they want to collaborate on a new competition, but both have also made clear they are prepared to pursue their own plans if no agreement is reached.
They have set no formal deadline, although both sides have indicated they want greater clarity by the end of the season.
The expansion drive extends the NBA’s longstanding effort towards globalisation, a trend that has emerged across North America’s “Big Four” men’s professional leagues, with the NFL launching a record slate of nine international games this season.
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(Additional reporting by Amy Tennery and Ruairidh Barlow, editing by Ed Osmond, Ken Ferris and Toby Davis)
