By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
The NBA Europe project was discussed by NBA commissioner Adam Silver during an appearance on the Front Office Sports Tuned In Summit in New York on Tuesday.
“Basketball’s probably the fastest-growing sport in the world right now, and it’s a huge No. 2 sport in Europe behind soccer, so I think there’s a real opportunity,” he said.
“As much as I’m an admirer of European soccer, we don’t want a top-heavy league,” added Silver on the league description, “We don’t want a league where there’s only a few teams where the perception is they are in the position to truly compete like the Champions League. We want to try to model a league after a system we know where it might not be a hard cap system but where you can regulate competition. There’s a sense that if you have a team, your team has a fair chance to win a championship.”
With many aspects of the new league remaining unclear, including the list of participating teams, NBA Europe is expected to start at approximately 16 teams in cities the likes as Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Berlin, Paris, London, Manchester, Milan, Rome, Istanbul, and Athens, with potential British hosts in London and Manchester recently confirmed by GBBL.
“I think we could start with some of the existing arenas and then transition,” noted Silver, while also confirming the timeline to tipoff and plans to link the launch with the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, “So ‘27 is ambitious, there’s no question about it, but I don’t think I don’t think I’d want to go much longer than ‘28. The opportunity is now to do something like this.”
However, LeBron James is seemingly considering similar projects, alongside longtime business partner Maverick Carter, as explained by Eurohoops following a meeting with Nikola Jokic and his agent Misko Raznatovic in July.
“Competition is good,” mentioned Silver, “It keeps everyone on their toes.”
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