The winningest NBA bids will be named in the coming months: Mark Tatum

Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum said in an exclusive interview with CNBC that the league plans to begin naming winning bidders for the 12 permanent European teams within the next 60 to 90 days.

He said the Europa League is still on track to debut in October 2027.

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 ​​team in Europe on an annual basis depending on performance. The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) is the international governing body for the sport in Europe.

Tatum told CNBC Sport that bids for the teams are scheduled to end at the end of June. Tatum said the league is looking for “major operators” who will invest in new arenas, adding that there are only “two to three world-class basketball arenas” across Europe.

“We’re on a very accelerated timeline here,” Tatum said. “We’re going to be identifying 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 just talking to basketball teams that are in the ecosystem, but we’re also talking to soccer teams that don’t currently have interested basketball teams, and we’re also talking to other individuals and entities that don’t have a basketball team but would like to invest in a basketball team.”

Tatum noted that basketball is the second most popular sport in Europe but has “less than 1% of the commercial market share there.” It is estimated that Europe has about 300 million basketball fans.

The NBA is considering how to merge NBA teams in Europe with existing North American teams. In the short term, NBA teams in Europe could play 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 NBA Emirates Cup – a mid-season tournament in which the league will debut in 2023.

Tatum said NBA officials are in “a lot” of conversations with potential media partners for NBA Europe, including “some of the big global streaming partners.” He said that the value of the league would be in its global interest, even though it is located in Europe.

“There was an incredible amount of internal interest in taking those games and distributing them not just throughout Europe but globally,” Tatum said. “We have no doubt that it will generate some global interest, so the media partners are very interested in conveying this content.”

Tatum has also pitched investors to the NBA’s African Basketball League. While the league has been in operation for six seasons, the NBA only recently began selling individual teams to investors.

BAL currently contributes $250 million to the African continent’s GDP, Tatum said, and he estimated that could grow to $5.4 billion by 2034.

“11 of the 20 fastest growing economies in the world are located in Africa, and Africa is expected to represent more than 40% 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, creating jobs and economic growth, and now is the opportunity to get in on the ground and capitalize on that growth.