First-round bids for NBA Europe franchises closed April 1, and the league's office says 120 investor groups responded with multiple bids above $1 billion per team. [1] The target is a 16-team league tipping off in October 2027, with founding cities spread across London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Milan, and Istanbul. [2] The price point is the news. Three U.S. NBA franchises cleared $10 billion in valuation this year. [2] A European league without a single game played is now trading at the valuation of an expansion MLS club.

The capital pool is not new. The same U.S. private-equity firms that bought minority stakes in Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan, and a dozen Premier League clubs are cycling into basketball. [3] The NBA's $76 billion domestic media deal, signed in 2024, is the collateral. Europe is the expansion. The pitch to limited partners is that a franchise bought at $1 billion in 2026 will clear $3 billion by 2033 — the math the U.S. league has delivered three times in three decades.

What MSM has not written is the antitrust question embedded in the bid deadline. EuroLeague Basketball, the incumbent, has legal rights to several of the cities NBA Europe wants, and Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Olympiacos are already paying their players eight-figure salaries. [1] A new league arriving with American capital and NBA branding does not displace the incumbent — it bids the labor market up.

October 2027 is eighteen months away. The cities, the arenas, and the broadcast rights all remain unnegotiated. The $1 billion, apparently, does not.

-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos