{"id":37734,"date":"2025-07-31T20:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/37734\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T20:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:58:09","slug":"lebron-james-nikola-jokic-reportedly-meet-over-5bn-upstart-to-rival-nba-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/37734\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James, Nikola Joki\u0107 reportedly meet over $5bn upstart to rival NBA | Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

A high-profile meeting last week in France between LeBron James, his business partner Maverick Carter and Nikola Joki\u0107\u2019s agent Mi\u0161ko Ra\u017enatovi\u0107 was about plans for a new $5bn international basketball league, according to a report by Front Office Sports<\/a>, which cited multiple sources familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

The proposed league, spearheaded by Carter, would feature six men\u2019s and six women\u2019s teams that travel together to eight global cities in a touring format. Inspired by LIV Golf and Formula One, the league aims to offer players equity stakes, something NBA<\/a> rules currently prohibit for active athletes.<\/p>\n

Ra\u017enatovi\u0107, a powerful figure in European basketball, posted a photo of the meeting on Instagram over the weekend. The caption, tagged in Saint-Tropez, teased: \u201cThe summer of 2025 is the perfect time to make big plans for the fall of 2026.\u201d That photo fueled speculation about a potential team-up between James and Joki\u0107, but sources confirmed to Front Office Sports the meeting was unrelated to the NBA.<\/p>\n

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Carter began pitching the league earlier this year, with Bloomberg reporting in January<\/a> that he is seeking to raise $5bn in funding. Backers already include the Singapore government, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund, SC Holdings, UBS and investors such as Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice and former Facebook executive Grady Burnett.<\/p>\n

Unlike the WNBA-adjacent Unrivaled league, which allows dual participation, Carter\u2019s venture is expected to require full-time commitments, effectively ruling out NBA participation unless league rules change.<\/p>\n

The NBA, meanwhile, is pursuing its own expansion into Europe. Commissioner Adam Silver and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum met with UK prime minister Keir Starmer in London last week to discuss plans for a Europe-based NBA league in partnership with Fiba. As part of that effort, the NBA announced that the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies will play regular-season games in Berlin and London in January 2026.<\/p>\n

EuroLeague officials have pushed back against the NBA\u2019s expansion talks. \u201cWe said to them, like we said publicly, we don\u2019t believe that the new league is something that would help the market,\u201d EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiej\u016bnas told the Athletic on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A high-profile meeting last week in France between LeBron James, his business partner Maverick Carter and Nikola Joki\u0107\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-37734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}