Adam Silver is in Europe this week. Officially, it's for basketball—the Grizzlies and Magic tip off Thursday in Berlin for the first-ever NBA regular season game on German soil. Unofficially? The commissioner is selling something far bigger than a single game.
According to Bloomberg, the NBA is preparing to pitch investors on a new European league with franchise valuations reaching up to $1 billion. That's the number being floated to sovereign wealth funds, private equity groups, and deep-pocketed individuals who might want a piece of what the league believes could be a $3 billion annual revenue ecosystem across Europe and the Middle East.
The math behind the billion-dollar bet
Here's what we know so far. The league has enlisted JP Morgan Chase and the Raine Group as advisers on the project—serious financial muscle for what's clearly being treated as a serious expansion play. The initial structure would feature 12 permanent franchises, with an additional four spots potentially open to top EuroLeague clubs through a "semi-open" qualification system.
That 50-50 split matters. The NBA would retain half the equity in the new league while outside investors hold the other half. It's a model designed to funnel revenue back to the 30 existing NBA owners rather than diluting their current stake—which explains why domestic expansion to 32 teams keeps getting pushed back. Adding Seattle and Las Vegas means sharing the pie. NBA Europe means baking a second one.
"Domestic expansion, as opposed to doing a new league in Europe, is selling equity in this current league," Silver explained in December. "If you own 1/30 of this league, now you own 1/32 if you add two teams. So it's a much more difficult economic analysis."
Who's already circling
The list of rumored locations reads like a European vacation wishlist: London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Athens, Istanbul, Rome. Some of those cities already have EuroLeague powerhouses—Real Madrid and FC Barcelona's basketball operations have licenses expiring in 2026, which is not a coincidence.
Reports have linked Silver to conversations with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Paris Saint-Germain's Qatari owners, and AC Milan's ownership group Red Bird Capital. Tony Parker, who owns EuroLeague club ASVEL, has gone on record saying the league is "just a matter of time."
"If the EuroLeague, the NBA and FIBA can find a way to work together to build a strong league, that will be amazing for European basketball," Parker said at an event in Chengdu last fall.
The timing isn't accidental
This week's trip isn't just about photo ops and face time with dignitaries. The Berlin and London games—Thursday and Sunday, respectively—are stress tests. The NBA is gauging European appetite for live product in real time. The Paris Games last January sold out within hours. The 2011 London game between the Raptors and Nets went to triple overtime with 273 points scored. These events have proven the market exists.
The financial projections being shared with potential investors paint an aggressive picture. NBA league-wide revenue is projected to hit $14.3 billion this season, a 12% jump from last year, fueled by the new $76 billion broadcast rights deal. The average franchise valuation has climbed to $5.51 billion—up 113% since 2022. The Lakers sold for $10 billion last June.
If those numbers hold, convincing investors to pay $500 million to $1 billion for a European franchise suddenly looks like a reasonable proposition—especially when the alternative is trying to crack into a 30-team league where nobody's selling.
What's actually on the table
A 2027 launch has been floated, though nothing's finalized. The current model calls for 16 teams total: 12 permanent franchises plus four earned through qualification. Silver has acknowledged the FIBA-NBA rules gap—48-minute games vs. 40, different goaltending standards, varied court dimensions—and indicated the league would lean toward European basketball traditions.
"We want to honor the tradition of European sport," Silver said in March.
The real question is whether this becomes an NBA-run competition that absorbs EuroLeague's best clubs or a parallel product that competes with it. The diplomatic language suggests partnership. The financial structure suggests something closer to acquisition. For the clubs involved, that distinction matters enormously. For the NBA, the end goal is the same: monetizing the world's second-largest basketball market before someone else does.
Thursday's tip-off in Berlin is just a game. What happens in the conference rooms beforehand might reshape where professional basketball is headed for the next decade.