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NBA commissioner Adam Silver and his chief deputies met with leaders from Spanish conglomerate Real Madrid on Thursday in Paris about the possibility of the club signing on with Silver’s planned European league. Membership from the soccer and basketball juggernaut would mark a significant step in launching the NBA’s overseas venture. Thursday’s meeting is part of a series of similar discussions Silver, NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum and the league’s European and Middle East director George Aivazoglou are having in Europe this week with potential investors and teams for the NBA Europe league Silver is pursuing.
But the NBA’s sit-down with Real Madrid officials, disclosed to The Athletic by American and European basketball sources, is perhaps most important because of Real Madrid’s historical standing in Europe, its unlimited funding because of the success of its soccer operation and its tenuous relationship with the EuroLeague. Real Madrid is an “A” license holder in the EuroLeague, which is a championship-style series of games on the continent for the top clubs from each national league, with a few stakeholders guaranteed a spot in the EuroLeague each year. Real Madrid is one of those clubs with a guaranteed spot, but its license expires in 2026. Should Real Madrid join Silver’s new venture, other EuroLeague clubs would follow, European sources believe.
A spokesman for Real Madrid did not respond to a message seeking comment, and an NBA spokesman declined to comment on the meetings. Earlier this week, Silver, Tatum and Aivazoglou met in London with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who will host the NBA in January for a Global Games series between the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies. Silver would also want an NBA Europe team in London — a city of nearly nine million people with about 15 million living in the greater metropolitan area. The United Kingdom is home to soccer’s mighty Premier League and is also another place where the NBA could attract big soccer dollars from Middle Eastern sovereign funds. The British Basketball League’s reigning champion, London Lions, is owned by tech giant Tesonet. The club nearly folded before Tesonet’s 11th-hour purchase in 2024.
Adam Silver, Mark Tatum meet with British PM amid NBA Europe talks
Marc Stein: BREAKING: NBA commissioner Adam Silver and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum met today in London with United Kingdom prime minister Keir Starmer, @TheSteinLine has learned, as part of Silver and Tatum’s trip to meet with various potential stakeholders in a new NBA Europe league.
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In March, QSI revealed it had been approached about the possibility of launching a basketball franchise in Paris and that it had expressed an interest. The approach related to the NBA’s potential expansion into Europe, under the moniker NBA Europe, and plans that have been developed under the leadership of commissioner Adam Silver. The Athletic reported in March that Silver would pitch the NBA Board of Governors with the outline of a plan to launch a new pro basketball league in Europe within the next couple of years. The prospective league had been hoping to attract 16 teams, which would include franchises in markets such as London and Paris, as well as possible defectors from the EuroLeague. Since then, there have been indications from NBA and EuroLeague executives that there may be a way to collaborate. EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas conceded to The Athletic that “it is becoming more obvious that we have to work together”, while NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum said the NBA intends to be the “operator” of “the top tier league in Europe.”
More than two months after commissioner Adam Silver announced that the NBA is looking into the idea, deputy commissioner Mark Tatum told The Athletic that the NBA continues to have discussions with potential stakeholders in the league. It has spoken with several investment banks, aside from The Raine Group, which has been working with the NBA since last year, about coming on as financial advisors before the NBA goes to market and begins to sell equity stakes in its new European league franchises.
Alba Berlin, one of the top teams in Germany, announced that it would leave the EuroLeague, where it played under a wild-card entry, to join FIBA’s Basketball Champions League. That move has been viewed as laying the groundwork to eventually join the NBA’s future league. Tatum said it was a sign that Alba Berlin bought “into this vision of a revamped top-tier league in Europe that is going to service fans, the millions of basketball fans in Europe that currently aren’t serviced today.”
Speaking about creating top-tier clubs, especially in the UK, Mark Tatum added that in the preseason, the NBA Europe Live tour format may return, with NBA clubs playing preseason games against European teams. “If we operate a top-tier competition in Europe, then we will have a big incentive to bring this back”, he clarified. Once more, Tatum wasn’t negative about Eastern European clubs joining the project, even if he implied that they might fight for their qualification via the Basketball Champions League: “There’s a role in our league for teams from Eastern Europe. We want clubs from Serbia, Israel, Turkey, and Greece”.
Mark Tatum: “In the new top-tier league, we might get the two top teams from the Basketball Champions League to qualify, and a tournament for the rest of the open spots. And the top two teams of the new league in the future may end up playing in the NBA Cup. And when we have supersonic travel down the road, we might get a European division. So all this is very exciting”.
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Christos Tsaltas: AEK BC has invited the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, the NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum and each and every NBA Board Member and executive for the 2025 BCL Final 4 (09-11/05), according to @athletiko_gr source. NBA members will attend in Athens. #BasketballCL #NBA #aekbc
The basketball business in Europe is far from living up to its potential, NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum told Reuters, as the league explores launching a new operation in the continent to take advantage of the sport's skyrocketing popularity. Commissioner Adam Silver said last month that it was looking into launching NBA Europe with world basketball body FIBA as its partner, with the initial plan to have a 16-team league. The league is intended to harness the explosive popularity of the sport in the continent, where Tatum said basketball is second only to soccer, as well as the deep pool of talent, with roughly 15% of all NBA players today from Europe. "There's an opportunity to continue to accelerate the growth of basketball in Europe and to close the gap between the affinity for the game of basketball and the commercial viability of basketball in that market as well," he told Reuters.
"Our goal is not to replace the Euroleague. Our goal is to create a commercially viable league that features high quality on-court competition and respects the rich tradition of European basketball. And we think that that will better serve fans and players on the continent," Tatum said. "We've tried for years to bring all of the relevant stakeholders together and we remain open to doing so."
Mark Tatum: 'The lack of world-class basketball facilities in Europe is striking relative to the affinity there'
Tatum pointed to the lack of permanent Euroleague teams in key cities including London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, and said the investment that comes with a new league would help bring sorely needed basketball infrastructure to the region. "The lack of world-class basketball facilities in Europe is striking relative to the affinity there," Tatum said. "There are big markets in Europe that aren't being serviced today, where there are millions of basketball fans that aren't being serviced."
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