{"id":898073,"date":"2026-10-28T23:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898073\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T23:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:20:14","slug":"sources-tanenbaum-bidding-for-nba-europe-team-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898073\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Tanenbaum bidding for NBA Europe team in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Raptors minority owner Larry Tanenbaum is pursuing NBA Europe\u2019s London franchise, sources told SBJ, and is a potential front-runner with a bid of roughly $1B.<\/p>\n

Sources close to the process believe the prospective teams in London and Paris are NBA Europe\u2019s marquee properties and that the winning bid will end up actually exceeding $1B in each market — with other European cities falling in the $500M to $1B range. For that reason, Tanenbaum\u2019s pursuit could set or advance the league\u2019s price ceiling. <\/p>\n

Paris Saint-Germain is considered the leader to obtain a startup Paris franchise, while Tanenbaum joins a competitive London marketplace that reportedly includes a consortium formed by ex-Tottenham Hotspur executive chairman Daniel Levy; another from one of Britain\u2019s preeminent sports bastions, the Lewis Family; another led by former Chelsea FC chair Todd Boehly; and still another from Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund.<\/p>\n

Tanenbaum, who recently finished a nine-year run as Chairman of the NBA Board of Governors, did not immediately respond to an email for comment. But his standalone Kilmer Sports formally sold its 25% stake<\/a> in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to Rogers Communications for $3.10B this month — creating additional liquidity and freeing him up to purchase an NBA Europe franchise. The NBA prohibits its current ownership groups from landing NBA Europe teams, considering the NBA, its teams and FIBA will own 52% of NBA Europe in Year 1. A minority NBA owner with less than a 5% stake can own a minority portion of an NBA Europe franchise, however.<\/p>\n

The NBA still plans to launch its European venture in October 2027, with or without a partnership with EuroLeague. While Commissioner Adam Silver has said talks are ongoing, the EuroLeague board earlier this month turned down the NBA\u2019s reported $581.41M offer <\/a>to purchase the league and merge. If talks continue to drag on or collapse, sources have said Year 1 of NBA Europe could consist of a tournament or some other form of competition — before accelerating in future years.<\/p>\n

As of now, Real Madrid appears to be the EuroLeague team most likely to exercise an escape clause of $11.6M to join NBA Europe, with ASVEL and Fenerbah\u00e7e possibly following suit. The potential permanent NBA Europe cities — outside of London, Paris and Madrid — have long been reported as Manchester; Lyon, France (home of EuroLeague\u2019s ASVEL); Rome; Milan; Athens; Berlin; Munich; and Istanbul (home of Fenerbah\u00e7e). The plan is also to have four more clubs join through yearly qualifying.<\/p>\n

The London bidding will likely produce the league\u2019s most lucrative price. Outside of the Tanenbaum offer, the NBA has multiple groups to vet. Levy\u2019s reported backers include Liberty Global and MSP Sports Capital; the billionaire Lewis Family that controls Tottenham Hotspur is aligned with former Knicks and Jazz executive Dave Checketts; Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora has put together a so-called \u201cTech Titans\u201d consortium; Boehly has know-how in the London market through his time at Chelsea; and the Saudi Public Investment Fund reportedly desires to expand its sports presence.<\/p>\n

Whoever wins the bid will, similarly to PSG, start the franchise from scratch — unlike the EuroLeague teams that would arrive with a roster and IP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Raptors minority owner Larry Tanenbaum is pursuing NBA Europe\u2019s London franchise, sources told SBJ, and is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[402,355,99],"class_list":["post-898073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}