Two weeks ago we covered the EuroLeague owners turning down the NBA’s offer in Cernobbio. This week they showed their alternative. All 13 shareholder clubs approved a 10-year business plan targeting €648 million in annual commercial revenue by year ten and €3.4 billion in payouts to teams over the decade, per Reuters. The same report says the league has 15 binding offers for new franchises worth €1.2 billion combined, and projects club values tripling to €5.4 billion while the league itself grows from €1.4 billion to nearly €8 billion.
It is a confident document. It is also a revealing one, starting with where the money comes from. Of the €3.4 billion promised to teams, €1.2 billion is franchise fees. That means roughly a third of the decade’s distributions come from selling seats at the table, not from running the competition. That is not a criticism. Every closed league funds its early growth this way. But it means the plan’s credibility rests on those 15 bidders turning into paying owners, and on new owners believing the seat is worth more next year than this one.
The second number is the uncomfortable one. Only about 40% of licensed clubs are currently considered financially sustainable, according to Front Office Sports, and the plan promises all of them will be by the end of its first phase. Anyone who has worked inside European basketball operations knows what sits behind that 60%: owners covering annual losses so the team can travel, pay salaries and stay in the competition. Franchise status gives those clubs a sellable asset. It doesn’t, by itself, give them a profit.
Then there’s the market. The US now holds 53.9% of global sports media-rights value, and Europe’s five biggest markets combined are worth about a third of the US, Reuters reported from SportBusiness data. The EuroLeague is promising five-fold growth in a media market a fraction of the size of the NBA’s home turf.
Who wins if it works? The shareholder clubs first: their licences become permanent franchises with real equity value. New buyers get entry before the valuation climbs. Broadcasters and streamers gain a property with long-term stability to bid on.
And the NBA? It isn’t backing off. The NBA and FIBA said they remain committed to a European league whether or not a deal is reached, per Reuters. But every franchise fee the EuroLeague collects raises the price of any future merger. That may be the real purpose of the plan: not a final answer to the NBA, but a stronger position for the next round of talks.
THE DIGEST
The EuroLeague is now distributing a rival league. EuroLeague TV, the EuroLeague’s own streaming service, has signed on to carry Australia’s NBL into markets including Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Turkey and the UK. It’s part of a record 35-country footprint for the NBL this season, per Sportcal. Read alongside the deep dive, it suggests the EuroLeague sees its platform as a basketball distribution business, not just a home for its own games. More content means more reasons to subscribe.
Sports media rights hit a record, and basketball is near the top of the pile. The global value of sports media rights reached $65.8 billion in 2026, up 15% on last year, with the NFL and NBA together accounting for 30% of the worldwide total, per Reuters. The same report forecasts a dip to $62.2 billion in 2027, once the World Cup and Winter Olympics drop out of the numbers. Strip out the big events and growth is far more modest, which matters for every league counting on rights fees to fund expansion.
Advertisers are getting more out of basketball than almost anything else on TV. Ads during basketball drove 4.1 times the impact of the average primetime ad last season, up 13% year on year, according to EDO’s annual basketball report. NBA Finals spots hit 132 times the primetime average, and WNBA ads ran 80% above it. EDO sells this kind of measurement, so read it as a vendor’s data, but the direction supports every rights negotiation the sport has coming.
Unrivaled’s valuation nearly doubled in a year. The women’s three-on-three league raised money at a $650 million valuation, close to twice its level a year ago, per the Associated Press. Last edition we noted Issa Rae’s investment in the league. This is the price the next investors are paying.
Disney stays on the Magic’s chest for the long term. Walt Disney World extended its jersey-patch deal with Orlando, a partnership that has carried its name on the uniform since 2017, as first reported by the Sports Business Journal. The team described the extension as long-term but declined to give its length, per the Orlando Sentinel. The renewal includes a redesigned Disney-branded atrium in the Kia Center, so the deal has moved beyond the jersey and into the venue.
The NBA’s China comeback ran through a casino arena. The Mavericks and Rockets played two preseason games in Macao this month at the Venetian Arena, which is owned by Sands, whose president also serves as the Mavericks’ governor, per the Associated Press. Adam Silver used the trip to restate his European ambitions, telling CNBC the NBA still expects to reach a deal with the EuroLeague, as Eurohoops reported. For the NBA, China re-entry runs through a team owner’s hospitality empire. It’s a softer, more controllable route back into a market it was shut out of in 2019.
And from Australia: grassroots basketball gets a broadcast layer. Basketball Australia has partnered with sports-video company Pixellot to launch HoopsTV in November. The goal is to capture more than 400,000 community games a year across 1,000 venues, with footage behind authenticated accounts, an opt-out for players and no facial recognition, per Basketball Australia. The federation is building a national library of grassroots footage, along with the privacy rules to protect it. That’s an asset for player development today, and possibly a commercial one later.