{"id":433111,"date":"2026-01-23T22:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433111\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T22:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:08:08","slug":"real-madrid-could-be-first-club-to-nba-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433111\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid could be first club to NBA Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real Madrid\u2019s flirtation with NBA Europe has escalated to \u201cdirect, high level talks,\u201d FIBA Europe President Jorge Garbajosa said Friday, amid rampant speculation overseas that the historic Spanish club <\/a>will be the first to commit to the fledgling league.<\/p>\n

Appearing on COPE\u2019s Tiempo de Juego sports radio program, Garbajosa said, \u201cWe know that Real Madrid has shown interest, and the NBA is in direct, high-level talks with the club. We know it\u2019s an interesting option for them, as it is for other clubs, as [NBA Commissioner] Adam Silver said the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with Real Madrid, indications are ASVEL from Lyons, France (owned by former NBAer Tony Parker<\/a>) and Istanbul\u2019s Fenerbah\u00e7e are poised to pay franchise fees between $500M and $1B to join NBA Europe. All three have missed a soft deadline to re-up with EuroLeague for another 10 seasons, and all three have been in advanced talks with the NBA for months. But Real Madrid would lend the most credibility of all, considering it launched its basketball platform nearly 100 years ago (in 1931), has won a record 11 EuroLeague titles and has over the years housed players such as Arvydas Sabonis, Dra\u017een Petrovi\u0107 and, most recently, Luka Don\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n

Although Silver has said the fiscal returns<\/a> from NBA Europe may take decades to appear, Garbajosa said Friday that EuroLeague has not produced any financial windfall itself, saying teams \u201close an average of 20, 25, or 30 million a year without any kind of return.\u201d <\/p>\n

Based on the immediate feedback in Spain, the Real Madrid fanbase is conflicted about the prospective flip to NBA Europe. The clubs\u2019 fan organizations issued a defiant joint statement three days ago opposing the move, largely because it could conceivably end longstanding EuroLeague rivalries that are bitter, to say the least.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus is on European basketball against historic teams with a strong basketball tradition,\u201d the joint statement read. \u201cThat\u2019s not what the NBA Europe currently offers. Going into that competition alone would be a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the NBA is purportedly pursuing Real Madrid\u2019s most bitter, multi-generational rival Barcelona, as well as another hated opponent Panathinaikos, among others.<\/p>\n

Either way, the NBA is expected to greenlight<\/a> the new league at its March Board of Governors session, when owners will likely be informed of NBA Europe franchise fees. They will presumably vote yes, in part, because they will own 50% of the the league, because there will be a cost-conscious salary cap to and — unlike domestic expansion — they won\u2019t have to share their national TV money in the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Real Madrid\u2019s flirtation with NBA Europe has escalated to \u201cdirect, high level talks,\u201d FIBA Europe President Jorge Garbajosa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,3389,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-433111","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-basketball","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433111","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=433111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}