The NBA’s growing interest in forming a new basketball league in Europe is getting in the way of its longstanding efforts to expand from 30 to 32 teams.
The NBA was seemingly on the fast track to expand from 30 to 32 teams, with an announcement slated for sometime in 2025 that Seattle and Las Vegas would enter the league over the next few years, now that the 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal is signed, sealed, and starting in the fall. I even made it one of my 10 sports business predictions for 2025 that led off the calendar year.
The Boston Celtics‘ sale for a record-breaking $6.1 billion in March was quickly eclipsed two months later when the Los Angeles Lakers were sold at a stunning $10 billion valuation. Those two transactions were supposed to pave the way for the league to fetch $7-8 billion each for two new teams, fetching all 30 owners with a $500 million windfall. But a combination of ownership dissent and a new European venture apparently has NBA Commissioner Adam Silver pumping the brakes on expansion plans.
In March, roughly a week after the Celtics sale was announced, a report surfaced laying out the NBA’s partnership with FIBA on a broad vision for a new European basketball super league that could launch as early as 2026. It would broaden basketball’s popularity on the continent and optimize the business so that the sport and the league would drive more revenue and profit than the incumbent EuroLeague. New teams in cities like London and Paris, potentially in partnership with soccer giant Paris Saint-Germain, and incumbent clubs like Real Madrid that could defect from the EuroLeague, would form an outfit backed by venture capital funds and foreign sovereign wealth funds that would bring in new cash flow to NBA owners without having to divide or dilute the pot from 30 to 32 teams.
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Fast-forward to this week, and Silver and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum have reportedly been in London meeting with government officials and potential league stakeholders. That included UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, U.S. ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens, private equity companies and investment firms like KKR, CVC, and Redbird, representatives from Abu Dhabi’s government, and Istanbul soccer club Galatasaray. And on Wednesday, while the NBA’s biggest executives were courting officials that could accelerate this European expansion, the league announced that the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies would play in Berlin and London in January as part of a six-game slate over the next three years. The NBA will then play games in Manchester and Paris in 2027, and Berlin and Paris in 2028.
It doesn’t seem like the league is doing a very good job of hiding its European ambitions and intentions, perhaps telegraphing to the markets the NBA is in part looking to pursue in its new venture. These plans have not sat well with the EuroLeague, a 25-year-old entrenched entity with 20 teams across the continent. Its CEO, Paulius Motiejūnas, told The Athletic this week that while they’re ready to collaborate with the NBA and FIBA, he doesn’t see a new league as a threat, and it would create more confusion and division than anything.
This newfound intercontinental exploration for the NBA is happening at the same time as murmurs and whispers are growing louder that NBA ownership isn’t as bullish on expanding from its existing 30 teams as it was even a year ago. At the league’s annual Board of Governors meeting earlier this month, from Summer League in Las Vegas, the league office was tasked by owners to analyze the economic and non-economic pros and cons of expansion.
“Nothing’s been predetermined one way or another, and without any specific timeline,” Silver said.
Silver’s comments come amid reports that “there is not overwhelming momentum among governors to immediately expand past the current 30 teams,” in large part due to the windfall owners are already receiving from the new TV deal and uncertainty surrounding the future of local TV rights. The regional sports network model is failing following Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy and subsequent resurrection, and Silver has repeatedly voiced his frustration at cable and RSNs’ uncertainty and instability. Now, instead of expansion being a slam dunk, it’s evolved into a contested layup of sorts.
What was seen as one of the most critical issues in the league in 2025 may have been relegated to the back burner now that these European plans appear to be very much in motion. While there are still key restricted free agents whose situations remain unresolved and key role players searching for new homes, the main business of this NBA offseason is largely done. As the calendar flips to August and the NBA begins its most dormant month, the league appears to be full speed ahead on this European project while punting on the issue of expansion just in time for football season.
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