NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum speaks during the second round of the 2019 NBA Draft at Barclays Center on June 20, 2019, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
Sarah Stier | Getty Images
The NBA plans to begin naming successful candidates for 12 permanent European teams in the next 60 to 90 days, deputy commissioner Mark Tatum said in an exclusive interview with CNBC.
The European league remains on track 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 available to any FIBA-affiliated team in Europe on an annual basis depending on their performance. FIBA is the international governing body for the sport in Europe.
Bids for the teams are expected in late June, Tatum told CNBC Sport. The league is looking for “big operators” who will invest in new stadiums, said Tatum, who added that there are only “two to three world-class basketball stadiums” in all of Europe.
“We’re here on a very, very fast timeline,” Tatum said. “We’re going to identify the right partners in the right cities, and we’re going to take as much time as necessary to identify those right partners. We’re not only talking about existing basketball teams in the ecosystem, but we’re also talking about soccer teams that currently don’t have basketball teams interested, and we’re also talking about individuals and other entities that don’t have a basketball team but want to invest in a basketball team.”
Tatum noted that basketball is the second most popular sport in Europe, but has “less than 1% commercial market share” there. He estimates that Europe has around 300 million basketball fans.
The NBA is considering how to mix NBA Europe teams with its existing North American teams. In the short term, NBA Europe teams could face teams based in the United States and Canada in the preseason, Tatum said. Then, over time, teams from the two leagues could meet in the Emirates NBA Cup – the mid-season tournament that the league launched in 2023.
NBA officials are having “a ton” of conversations with potential media partners for NBA Europe, including “some of the biggest global streaming partners,” Tatum said. The league’s value will be in its global interest, even though it is based in Europe, he said.
“There has been incredible interest in supporting these games and distributing them not only across Europe but around the world,” Tatum said. “We have no doubt that this will generate some interest globally, and that is why media partners are very interested in broadcasting this content.”
Tatum also introduced investors to the NBA’s Basketball Africa League. While the league has been around for six seasons, the NBA only recently began selling individual teams to investors.
The BAL currently contributes $250 million to the African continent’s GDP, said Tatum, who estimates that this amount could reach $5.4 billion by 2034.
“Eleven of the world’s 20 fastest-growing economies are in Africa, and Africa is expected to be home to more than 40 percent of the world’s youth in the next five years,” Tatum said. “So what I would say to these investors is, ‘What a great market opportunity.’ Basketball is now becoming a business that creates jobs and economic growth, and now is the opportunity to get on the court and take advantage of that growth. »