LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The NBA will be doing some international business alongside the FIFA World Cup final in the coming days, as it moves closer to the planned launch of a new league in Europe sometime in the fall of 2027.
Commissioner Adam Silver, speaking after the league’s Board of Governors meeting on Tuesday night, said he and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum plan to talk to a number of groups interested in owning teams that will play in the new league.
And since many of those interested parties will be heading to the New York area for Sunday’s World Cup final, it made sense to take meetings, Silver said.
“We’ve had tremendous interest from multiple cities in Europe, including cities that we didn’t ask for bids from,” Silver said. “And we discussed with our board today that we’re in the process of finalizing those bids for an initial group of cities.”
The NBA and FIBA, the sport’s global governing body, announced plans last year to pursue a new European league — ending years of speculation about when or if such a move would happen. The plan remains in place for the new league to launch in just over a year.
“Things are where I hope they would be,” Silver said.
Meanwhile, the lengthy probe into whether the Los Angeles Clippers circumvented salary cap rules related to an endorsement contract between Kawhi Leonard and a now-bankrupt California-based digital bank that touted itself as environmentally friendly remains active, and Silver said he wants it completed sometime this summer.
It is now a thornier issue, given that a trade is in place to send Leonard from the Clippers to the Toronto Raptors. The teams put that trade on hold last week pending the outcome of the probe, and that could take weeks to decide.
The teams made that decision, and the issues “were well-known to the teams,” Silver said.
“They chose not to live with that uncertainty,” Silver said.
The NBA enlisted outside counsel — Wachtell Lipton, a New York-based firm — to conduct the investigation, and Silver said he gets regular updates from the league’s general counsel on certain elements of the probe.
