NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum speaks during the second round of the 2019 NBA Draft at the Barclays Center on June 20, 2019, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
Sarah Stier | Getty Images
The NBA plans to name the winning bids for the 12 permanent European teams in the next 60 to 90 days, Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum said in an exclusive CNBC interview.
The European league is still due to start in October 2027, he said.
The 12 new teams will be located in Rome, Milan, London, Manchester, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, Athens and Istanbul. They will be joined by four rotating clubs from any FIBA-affiliated club in Europe every year depending on performance. FIBA is the governing international sports body in Europe.
Team bids are due by the end of June, Tatum told CNBC Sport. The league is looking for “major operators” to invest in new arenas, Tatum said, adding that there are “two to three world-class” basketball arenas across Europe.
“We’re on a very fast timeline here,” Tatum said. “We’re going to identify the right partners in the right cities, and we’re going to take as much time as we need to identify those right partners. We’re not only talking about existing basketball teams in the ecosystem, but we’re talking to football teams that don’t currently have basketball teams interested, and we’re talking to individuals and other organizations that don’t have a basketball team but don’t have a team.”
Tatum noted that basketball is the second most popular sport in Europe but gets “less than 1% of the commercial market share there.” He estimated that Europe has around 300 million basketball fans.
The NBA is considering how to merge NBA Europe teams with existing North American teams. In the short term, NBA Europe teams could play teams based in the US and Canada in the preseason, Tatum said. Then, later on, teams from across the two leagues could meet in the Emirates NBA Cup – a mid-season tournament the league started in 2023.
NBA officials are having “numerous” discussions with potential media partners for NBA Europe, including “some of the biggest global broadcast partners,” Tatum said. The value of the league will have a global impact, even though it is based in Europe, he said.
“There has been an incredible amount of interest in taking those games and distributing them not just across Europe but around the world,” Tatum said. “We have no doubt that it will generate global interest, so our media partners are very interested in carrying that content.”
Tatum also invested in the NBA’s Basketball Africa League. While the league has been in operation for six seasons, the NBA recently began selling individual teams to investors.
BAL currently contributes $250 million to the continent’s GDP, said Tatum, who estimated that could grow to $5.4 billion by 2034.
“Eleven of the 20 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa, and Africa is expected to account for more than 40% of the world’s youth in the next five years,” said Tatum. “So, what I can say to those investors is, ‘What a great market opportunity.’ Basketball is now becoming a business and creating jobs and economic growth, and now is an opportunity to get in on the grassroots and capitalize on that growth. “
