{"id":841781,"date":"2026-08-03T12:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/841781\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T12:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:17:09","slug":"nba-europes-london-franchise-attracts-reported-1-billion-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/841781\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Europe\u2019s London franchise attracts reported $1 billion offer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Eurohoops team \/\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurohoops.net\/en\/nba-news\/1995990\/nba-europes-london-franchise-attracts-reported-1-billion-offer\/mailto:info@eurohoops.net\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">info@eurohoops.net<\/a><\/p>\n<p>American technology billionaire Nikesh Arora is in talks to acquire the new London-based team expected to compete in NBA Europe, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7486778\/2026\/08\/02\/nba-europe-london-team-franchise\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The New York Times.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The 58-year-old Palo Alto Networks CEO has reportedly assembled a consortium of investors prepared to offer more than $1 billion (\u00a3740 million) for the London franchise, considered one of the most valuable spots in the proposed competition.<\/p>\n<p>Arora previously led Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, widely known as the \u201cTech Titans,\u201d in the acquisition of a 49% stake in the London Spirit cricket franchise. The deal was valued at \u00a3145 million.<\/p>\n<p>The NBA is targeting the second half of 2027 for the inaugural NBA Europe season. The proposed format would feature 16 teams, with 12 permanent licensed clubs and four additional sides qualifying through sporting merit.<\/p>\n<p>According to an earlier report by The Athletic, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund was also expected to bid for a London-based team. Qatar Sports Investments, the owner of Paris Saint-Germain, was linked to a potential Paris franchise, while Gerry Cardinale\u2019s RedBird Capital, which owns AC Milan, was expected to pursue a team in Milan.<\/p>\n<p>More than 120 prospective investors reportedly submitted expressions of interest during the opening stage of the process. The bids ranged from $500 million to $1 billion, with several proposals exceeding the $1 billion mark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe level of engagement and the scale of the bids reflect the marketplace\u2019s belief in our proposed model and the enormous, untapped potential for European basketball,\u201d NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum said in April.<\/p>\n<p>The group of interested parties also includes existing European clubs, among them teams currently competing in the EuroLeague.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Eurohoops team \/\u00a0info@eurohoops.net American technology billionaire Nikesh Arora is in talks to acquire the new London-based team&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-841781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841781","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=841781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}