{"id":148311,"date":"2025-09-16T21:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T21:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/148311\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T21:39:07","slug":"silver-new-euro-basketball-league-could-launch-in-2027-or-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/148311\/","title":{"rendered":"Silver: New Euro basketball league could launch in 2027 or ’28"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A new basketball league<\/a> based in Europe that the NBA and FIBA are working together to launch could begin play in 2027 or \u201928, though no timeline has been finalized, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a conference hosted by Front Office Sports, Silver called a 2027 start \u201cambitious, no doubt about it\u201d given the issues that still need to be addressed but did not rule out that possibility. He reiterated previous comments that the timeline could be two to three years, pointing out that existing arenas across Europe could be used at the beginning until more modern infrastructure is built up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019d want to go much longer than \u201928,\u201d Silver said. \u201cThe opportunity is now to do something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silver earlier this year said getting the league off the ground closer to the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028<\/a> might make more sense.<\/p>\n

The NBA and FIBA, the sport\u2019s global governing body, announced plans in March<\/a> to pursue a new European league \u2014 ending years of speculation about when or if such a move would happen. The process has been moving rapidly and a substantial move was made last month with the NBA brought on JPMorgan Chase and Raine Group to advise on finances and strategy going forward.<\/p>\n

Silver said he and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum had positive meetings with political leaders, teams, media companies, possible investors and other stakeholders across Europe, while work continues in the league office to make the project happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say I\u2019m enthusiastic about it,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n

Early plans call for the new league to have 16 teams, though that number could change. Existing European clubs like Real Madrid, Fenerbahce Istanbul and Barcelona are likely to figure into the NBA\u2019s plans for the new league, along with other top soccer brands like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.<\/p>\n

About one in every six current NBA players is European, including Denver\u2019s Nikola Jokic from Serbia and Milwaukee\u2019s Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece \u2014 who have combined for five of the last seven MVP awards \u2014 along with the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 Luka Doncic from Slovenia and San Antonio\u2019s Victor Wembanyama from France.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball\u2019s probably the fastest-growing sport in the world right now, and it\u2019s a huge No. 2 sport in Europe behind soccer, so I think there\u2019s a real opportunity,” Silver said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Reynolds reported from Miami.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A new basketball league based in Europe that the NBA and FIBA are working…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-148311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}