{"id":230819,"date":"2025-10-21T21:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/230819\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T21:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:08:07","slug":"tatum-outlines-phase-one-of-nba-europe-with-permanent-teams-in-five-or-maybe-seven-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/230819\/","title":{"rendered":"Tatum outlines “phase one” of NBA Europe with permanent teams in five or “maybe” seven countries"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Aris Barkas\/ barkas@eurohoops.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to international media on the occasion of the NBA season tipoff, the deputy commissioner of the NBA, Mark Tatum, went into details about the league\u2019s plan for Europe in collaboration with FIBA.<\/p>\n

Tatum repeated that the goal would be to launch NBA Europe in the next two years, that teams would also qualify via the Basketball Champions League, and maybe via their domestic league.<\/p>\n

Also, while speaking about the markets with permanent franchises, he named seven countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn phase one, our plan is Spain, UK, France, Italy, Germany, maybe Turkey, and maybe Greece. But there will be some open spots in the ecosystem, so in the early phase, they will be able to qualify,\u201d he replied to a question about NBA Europe featuring teams from Israel and the Middle East, which, for the moment, can\u2019t aim for a permanent spot.<\/p>\n

Answering a Eurohoops question about Greek teams, since so far there\u2019s no information, reports, or rumors about talks with the two Greek EuroLeague shareholders, Olympiacos<\/a> and Panathinaikos<\/a>, Tatum added: \u201cWe are talking with many clubs, including from Greece, but I can\u2019t go into specifics\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason we are doing this is not primarily commercial,\u201d he also mentioned, \u201cBasketball is the No. 2 sport in Europe, and you see in the EuroLeague, there are no permanent franchises in the UK, Paris, Rome, or Berlin. The league is not open to all clubs in Europe, and we want to serve all fans the best way possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy finding the right partners, they will invest more money in the sport and not only in the league, but in academies, arenas, and that will bring more resources to the sport of basketball,\u201d continued Tatum.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old executive also confirmed the projected start date.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to launch in the next two years,\u201d he said, \u201cWe hired JP Morgan and Rain as advisors, and they are working hard to refine our model. We had already talks with local stakeholders and now we are taking the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the recent meeting with the EuroLeague and FIBA in Geneva, and the reaction from the EuroLeague<\/a>,\u00a0Tatum repeated that all EuroLeague clubs are welcome to the new ecosystem. However, it\u2019s more than obvious that they can\u2019t have all permanent spots, and they might have to compete in the Basketball Champions League to qualify for NBA Europe.<\/p>\n

Read the latest News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Aris Barkas\/ barkas@eurohoops.net Speaking to international media on the occasion of the NBA season tipoff, the deputy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-230819","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\/230819","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=230819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}