A major operation is taking shape, involving some of the biggest figures in American cricket and basketball: in London, as NBA Europe moves closer to reality, a team is emerging that would arrive as a continental heavyweight from its very first game. The scale of the project is clear from the names involved. According to The Athletic, Nikesh Arora could be among the figures behind the operation: the American IT billionaire who already leads the consortium of investors that acquired 49% of London Spirit’s cricket franchise only a year ago. Akora is now ready to lead another group of wealthy investors looking to enter European basketball.
For a city like London, the opportunity is on a completely different scale – and without the kind of break with history and tradition that has become increasingly familiar elsewhere, particularly in Italy. The capital’s main basketball presence is the London Lions, a club relaunched only in 2012. In recent years, following the growth of English basketball – in terms of audience, with NBA games on the banks of the Thames now a regular fixture, and in terms of results – the Lions have reached the EuroCup semi-finals. They have built a respectable level of competitiveness. But that is likely to be overtaken by what comes next: the Akora-backed project would require more than one billion dollars. Ten times the current value of the franchise.
Numbers of this scale are becoming familiar. The sporting and financial reach of NBA Europe sits well beyond the usual boundaries of the European game. The final offers for the franchises expected to join the competition have all exceeded half a billion euros. In some cases, London included, they have gone considerably higher. American executives are aiming to launch the competition in the second half of 2027, with an inaugural season featuring 16 teams. For now, the scramble for those places is already underway.
That helps explain the arrival of a series of new basketball projects across Europe, including the two heavily engineered ventures that have appeared in Rome. A small spoiler: the chances of both becoming part of the final 16 are extremely limited, meaning one of them may have a very short future. The list of interested parties is already long. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the PIF, already deeply involved in global sport, is preparing another bid for a London franchise. Qatar, through the same sporting expansion that has already brought it ownership of PSG, would like to do something similar in Paris – with similar concerns surrounding Paris Basketball, a club whose rise across the continent has been even more significant than that of the Lions.
Milan is another part of the picture, although the Olimpia brand itself is not under threat. RedBird Capital would like to expand beyond AC Milan and create a second sporting project within NBA Europe. More than 120 investment groups expressed interest during the first round of offers, according to American executives. None of those offers fell below €500 million. As the NBA explains, “the level of financial interest around the model we have proposed is enormous and reflects the untapped potential of the European market”. The first moves are already being made. The shape of European basketball is beginning to change.