NEW YORK — NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum did not rule out that current EuroLeague behemoths could be a part of the NBA’s European league when it launches later this decade.

Tatum, in an appearance at the Sports Business Journal Dealmakers conference, mentioned Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich as clubs that could play in the potential league when it begins — the furthest any NBA official has come publicly to disclosing its possible future members.

Later, when asked by The Athletic if those franchises would be in the NBA’s league, Tatum said they are among the clubs the NBA has considered. The Athletic previously reported that Adam Silver met with Real Madrid this summer.

“There’s nothing definitive yet,” Tatum told The Athletic. “We’re having conversations with lots of potential investors in the ecosystem. Those were examples of potential teams. As I said, I think the mix will be an example of existing teams in the current top-tier league, some soccer teams that don’t have a basketball club and some teams from whole cloth.”

Tatum reiterated that NBA owners have still not signed off on its European project, but the league seems closer to coming to fruition. The NBA’s Europe league would consist of 16 teams, with 10 to 12 permanent members across Europe’s biggest cities. Four of those teams would play their way into the European league, potentially through FIBA’s Basketball Champions League tournament. Tatum told The Athletic that the play-in season would likely be the 2027-28 season and the first season of the full NBA European league would come in 2028-29.

Tatum also said that he believes that EuroLeague teams would not be tied to that league after the 2025-26 season because the licenses that tie its 13 permanent teams to the EuroLeague would expire. EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas told The Athletic in January that its new deal with IMG, its business partner, tethered those “A” license teams to the EuroLeague through the 2035-36 season. That agreement includes opt-out clauses for its clubs, but the details are not known.

“My understanding is that those licenses are up at the end of next year,” Tatum said. “As you know, I think, because it’s been reported, several teams have not signed that license. So the ones that have, again, I’m not going to speak to their ability to get out of that license, but I know that there are several teams that have not signed that license. And so, I think as I understand it, when those licenses are up, they’re free to go play in whatever league they want to play in.”

The NBA hopes that its European league could become a pillar of its international strategy. It already runs the Basketball Africa League. This year, it returned to China for the first time since 2019.

Tatum thinks that teams from the NBA’s European league could one day play NBA teams, first in the preseason and eventually in the NBA Cup. The broad, long-term vision is for the NBA to have a division out on the continent, he said.

“In the immediate short term, you could see a competition, think about it as a preseason Cup, where NBA teams go over and play against European league teams,” Tatum said on stage at the SBJ conference. “And you’d 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. Medium term — and I mean, you know, five to 10 years down the road — you could see a situation where the winners of the top two finishers in the European league, for example, get entered into the NBA Cup tournament. So now all of a sudden, you are having AC Milan and Barcelona playing in the NBA Cup tournament.

“Well down the road, you saw the article about the supersonic travel; at some point, and again, I’m talking long term down the road, you could see a scenario where the quality of the basketball continues to rise. Where 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’s a division of the NBA.”