{"id":298416,"date":"2025-11-21T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T03:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/298416\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T03:00:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T03:00:19","slug":"franchise-bidding-likely-to-start-in-q1-2026-mark-tatum-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/298416\/","title":{"rendered":"Franchise bidding likely to start in Q1 2026, Mark Tatum says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bidding for NBA Europe franchises<\/a> is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2026, with NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum today describing an almost imminent overseas league that would launch in 2027<\/a> and potentially stage a preseason tournament against U.S. NBA teams in Year One.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Abe Madkour at SBJ\u2019s annual Dealmakers conference<\/a> in N.Y., Tatum also said that \u201cone of first questions\u201d from potential investors is whether there will be a coinciding WNBA Europe. He then confirmed that \u201cat some point there\u2019s a conversation to be had\u201d about coordinating a current women\u2019s league run by FIBA –known as EuroLeague Women–with the NBA\u2019s ongoing project in Europe.<\/p>\n

Tatum also laid out countries that will likely host the 10-to-12 permanent NBA Europe franchises, identifying France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Greece. He also specifically singled out potential EuroLeague<\/a> clubs such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and LDLC ASVEL (owned by former NBAer Tony Parker<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost like the Champions League of basketball in Europe,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cSo brands like Real and Barca and Man City and PSG and AC Milan playing basketball. That\u2019s pretty compelling. Not only premium live sports content that\u2019s relevant in Europe, but it\u2019s relevant globally. It\u2019s relevant in Asia, it\u2019s relevant in the United States and North America because some of the brands that we\u2019re talking to have tremendous global followings.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also mentioned there would likely be a bridge year before four other teams qualify for the league in Year 2, saying, \u201cIf you\u2019re in Lithuania, if you\u2019re in Serbia, if you\u2019re in Croatia, other clubs in those markets, we want every team to have an opportunity to play into that top tier league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if there could be a \u201cheadwind\u201d preventing the planned 2027 launch, Tatum brought up the \u201ccritical\u201d importance of a salary cap system<\/a> — which he insinuated must be in place to ensure \u201ccompetitive balance and financial long-term financial viability.\u201d He also said, \u201cWe\u2019ve got a little bit of work to do there\u2026with the model, with our owners, with FIBA,” acknowledging lawyers are still drawing up the league template. Bidding will begin in Q1 of 2026, \u201cif we can get everything signed off on by our owners and by FIBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otherwise, Tatum said the plans for NBA Europe are more than crystalized, confirming that Raine Group and JP Morgan are still vetting whether franchise fees will be between $500M and $1B<\/a> and saying that prospective owners — whether they are individuals or from private equity or sovereign wealth funds — are going to have to invest in their arena infrastructure.<\/p>\n

On the court, he said the presence of an NBA Europe could \u201cstem the tide\u201d of international players playing for U.S. collegiate teams — giving European teenagers the opportunity to stay home, develop and make money.<\/p>\n

Of the league itself, he predicted, \u201cIt will be the best basketball in Europe. \u2026 If the NBA is players one through 450, [NBA] Europe is 451 through 900.”<\/p>\n

Other minute details — such as if and how a player can transfer from NBA Europe to the NBA — still needs be mapped out. But Tatum did emphatically paint a scenario of interleague play.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the immediate short term, you could see a competition –think about as a preseason cup,\u201d he said. \u201cWhere NBA teams go over and play against European league teams. And you create a little tournament around that, where the Knicks and the Lakers and the Bulls go over and play PSG, Real and Man City. So that we could do Year One. And I think that would be an exciting proposition. You award a cup at the end of that. <\/p>\n

\u201cMedium term and I mean, five, 10 years down the road, you could see a situation where the winners of the top two finishers and the European league, for example, get entered into the NBA Cup tournament<\/a>. So now all of a sudden you have an AC Milan and a Barcelona playing in the NBA Cup tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

He even imagined — in the distant future — NBA teams in Europe. \u201cAt some point, and again I\u2019m talking long term down the road, you could see a scenario where the quality of the basketball continues to rise,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cWhere you now have world-class infrastructure in these major world-class cities. And where supersonic travel becomes a reality, you could see a situation down the road where there\u2019s a division [in Europe] of the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Europe is still not the NBA\u2019s only international foray. Tatum also said conversations are ongoing to sell roughly 10 Basketball Africa League franchises<\/a> in the first half of 2026 to buyers \u201cin the biggest markets across Africa and Lagos and Johannesburg and Casablanca and Cairo and Dakar.\u201d The NBA has hired the global independent investment bank Moelis to advise them.<\/p>\n

Asked then by Madkour if there is another continent that the NBA wants to dominate, Tatum quipped, \u201cThere\u2019s not one that we don\u2019t want to dominate. I\u2019d say all of them.\u201d But he then seriously singled out Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say Asia is a huge opportunity for us,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople, I think they don\u2019t really focus on this, but I have to remind my people that 95% of the world\u2019s population is outside the United States. And in most of those countries, basketball is either number one or two sport. In Asia, that\u2019s where we\u2019re number one. China<\/a>, we\u2019re the number one sport, 300 million people play basketball in China. In the Philippines, we\u2019re the number one sport. Not soccer, it\u2019s basketball. And there are almost 2 billion people in Asia. It\u2019s a huge market for us. Hansen Yang<\/a> [of the Trail Blazers], his Summer League games<\/a> did more than our NBA Finals in terms of viewership.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bidding for NBA Europe franchises is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2026, with NBA Deputy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-298416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298416","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=298416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}