Football has spent a decade arguing about multi-club ownership. Basketball just got its first serious version, and it was built in Kaunas, of all places, not in a private equity office in New York or London.
What was agreed
Joventut Badalona is changing hands. Scranton Enterprises, the Grifols family’s investment vehicle, has agreed to sell its stake of around 86% to Confluence Valley, per Ara. Confluence Valley is the company formed by merging Zalgiris Group and the Lithuanian tech firm Tesonet, and it is led by Paulius Motiejunas, who ran EuroLeague as CEO from June 2023 until January 2026. Ricky Rubio, a product of Joventut’s academy and still its point guard, joins the shareholder base, per Eurohoops, which also notes the deal still needs CSD approval.
The map
Look at the structure, not just the headline. BallinEurope lays it out: Motiejunas holds 55% of Zalgiris and Tesonet the other 45%. Tesonet bought the London Lions in 2024, and Zalgiris has a scouting and academy partnership with Poland’s Dziki Warszawa, with no shares involved. Add Joventut and the network covers every level of European club basketball: EuroLeague, EuroCup, the Basketball Champions League and the FIBA Europe Cup. That’s four clubs held at four different levels of ownership, from full control down to an informal partnership.
The real asset is the building
This is a venue business that happens to own basketball teams. BallinEurope reports that the Zalgiris-linked company operating Kaunas’s arena made €3.1 million net profit on €20.3 million revenue in 2024-25, that Tesonet wants a 15,000-seat arena in London, and that Joventut holds a long-term lease on the Palau Olímpic. Joventut also lost €3.38 million in 2024-25, the same publication reports, which is the kind of turnaround job Motiejunas did at Zalgiris a decade ago. The arena is the profit centre, and the team is what fills it.
Why basketball hasn’t managed this before
It has been tried. Lithuania’s BC Wolves launched in 2022 with plans for a club in Dubai and a takeover in Helsinki, and ceased operations in June 2025, as BallinEurope recalls. The difference this time is an established club with disciplined finances and real revenue underneath it. In football, multi-club groups usually end up with frustrated fans at the smaller clubs. Joventut is a EuroLeague champion with its own history, so how the network treats it will decide whether this works.
What to watch
Three things. First, whether the CSD approves the deal. Second, whether Joventut is run to win or run as a feeder club. Third, the question nobody has asked yet: Barcelona is one of the 12 cities the NBA has targeted for NBA Europe, per Sportcal, and EuroLeague’s former CEO now controls a historic club next door. Whatever happens in the NBA-EuroLeague standoff, Motiejunas now has a stake in how it plays out in Barcelona.
The Digest
The NBA answered EuroLeague’s plan with a bigger number. Last week we unpacked EuroLeague’s 10-year plan. This week NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum replied that NBA Europe will triple EuroLeague’s projected €3.4 billion in club distributions, and that the average permanent team will be profitable by year three, per Sportcal. The same report says the NBA has received offers in all 12 target markets against a $500 million asking price, some above $1 billion, ahead of a planned October 2027 launch. On the other side, EuroLeague expects to name its new long-term licence holders in mid-November, according to the Greek news agency AMNA, as carried by Greek City Times.
The NBA made prediction markets official. The league signed a memorandum of understanding with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and named Kalshi and Polymarket as its Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges, with IP rights and official Sportradar data, per NBA.com. DraftKings’ existing deal now covers prediction markets too. The integrity rules include trading bans for league and team staff and obligations to share information on suspicious activity.
And from Africa, the other end of the money scale. Ghana’s Spintex Knights won all three of their BAL Division West games in Tripoli, then said they were stranded in Libya over about $33,000 in unpaid flight costs and might withdraw from the Elite 16, per Citi Sports. Co-founder Eric Opoku-Antwi said the club has been financed year after year by debt and personal support. Ghana’s Sports Ministry has said it was surprised by the stranding claim. While NBA Europe fields billion-dollar bids, a BAL qualifier is short of a single flight bill.
India hosted its first FIBA Asia club competition. The FIBA Women’s Basketball League Asia ran in Bengaluru from October 20 to 25, the first time an Indian city has hosted a FIBA Asia-level club event and the first time the competition has left China, per FIBA. Champions from China, Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei played India’s Indian Railways and a Philippine wild card, with every game streamed free on FIBA’s YouTube channel.
EuroLeague is now selling Australian basketball. The NBL’s European rights now include EuroLeague TV, the competition’s own streaming service, which carries NBL games into Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Turkey, the UK and the Nordics, per Sportcal. The NBL also added 12 new sponsors and 10 renewals for 2026-27. EuroLeague is using its own platform to distribute other leagues while it competes with the NBA for Europe’s clubs.
China’s CBA put relegation back on the table. The 2026-27 season tipped off October 16 with 460 regular-season games, and the two lowest-ranked CBA clubs will play a home-and-away series against the top two teams from the second-tier NBL, per CGTN. For club owners, a CBA place can now be lost.
The Spurs went back to free TV. San Antonio will air 22 games on Sinclair’s KMYS and other stations across South Texas this season, per TVNewsCheck. It’s one more team moving back to over-the-air broadcasting as the old regional sports network model breaks up.