NBA London Team: Everything We Know About NBA Europe 2027

An NBA London team looks very likely, but nothing has been awarded: London is one of 12 target cities for NBA Europe, the 16-team league the NBA and FIBA plan to launch in October 2027, and no owner, team name, fixture or arena has been announced.

As of 4th November 2026, the NBA has not named a winning bidder in any city. Every bidder on this page is reported, not confirmed. Last updated: 4th November 2026.

This is a running tracker rather than a one-off news story. New reports go into the log below with a date, and rumours stay labelled as rumours until the league says otherwise. There is a lot of noise around this one, with billionaires, football families and a very public fight with the EuroLeague, so I've tried to keep what is known and what is merely being said in separate piles.

NBA London team tracker: the latest reports

• 4th November 2026: City AM's Sam Cunningham reported that a consortium of Daniel Levy, Liberty Global and MSP Sports Capital is "said to be the frontrunner" for London, and that the Lewis family are "part of a rival bid".
• 1st November 2026: GiveMeSport reported that Larry Tanenbaum has "reportedly submitted" a 1 billion dollar bid for London. It named no original source, and I could not find a confirmation.
• 27th October 2026: Sky News had reported that executives from AC Milan, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich would meet the NBA in London around the Ballon d'Or. Spanish paper Sport said Barcelona and Bayern would stay away. I have not found a reliable account of what was said.
• 20th October 2026: Mark Tatum told reporters that club agreements were being finalised and that names would come in the "not-too-distant future", while adding there was "no timeline yet".
• 6th October 2026: ESPN reported that EuroLeague clubs had turned down a formal NBA offer to merge at a meeting on Lake Como.
• 17th September 2026: City AM reported that Battersea Power Station had ruled out an NBA arena, six weeks after The Athletic linked the site to the London team.
• 3rd August 2026: Eurohoops relayed a New York Times report that Nikesh Arora had assembled investors offering more than 1 billion dollars for London.
• 19th June 2026: HoopsHype, citing CNBC, reported that Tatum planned to begin naming winners within 60 to 90 days. That window closed in September with no names.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver at a game in Washington, DC, 21st November 2014. Photo: Keith Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0

Will London get an NBA team?

Almost certainly, if NBA Europe launches at all. London sits on the league's own list of 12 target cities, alongside Manchester, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Milan, Berlin, Munich, Athens and Istanbul, and NBA.com named those cities in July 2026. Sky Sports reported the same month that London led the field, with multiple bids above 1 billion dollars.

The important distinction is that this would not be a 31st NBA team playing the Celtics on a Tuesday. It would be a franchise in a separate European league, run with FIBA, and carrying the NBA's name and backing. The phrase "NBA London team" gets used loosely, and most of the confusion online comes from that. If you want to see the actual NBA in this country any time soon, our NBA international games page tracks what the league plays abroad, and the NBA Finals remain a North American event.

Why London? Adam Silver put it plainly while visiting for the January 2026 game, telling The Athletic: "More people are approaching us and saying, 'I'd love to have the London franchise.'" Tatum gave Sportico the commercial case the same month, calling the UK "the biggest market in Europe" and adding: "There's no top-tier basketball team there: in London, in Manchester." Ouch for British basketball, but that is the pitch.

The crowds and the television numbers help the argument. The Memphis Grizzlies beat the Orlando Magic 126-109 at The Arena, London, on 18th January 2026 in front of 18,424 people, and the NBA said it became the most-watched NBA Global Game ever in the UK, up 90% on the 2019 London game, Hoopsfix reported. Those are the league's own figures, and one showcase game is not a season of Tuesdays. It's still a decent start.

There is a template for all this. American sport has spent years testing London, and the NFL London games at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium are the model everyone cites. City AM notes that Daniel Levy helped bring those games to Tottenham, which goes some way to explaining why his name keeps coming up here. Our guide to which NFL London game suited client groups in 2026 shows how quickly an American fixture can become a fixed date in the London calendar. The difference is that the NFL visits. An NBA Europe team would have to live here.

When will the NBA London team be announced?

Nobody outside the league knows, and the NBA's own dates have already slipped. Here is the trail. In June 2026 Silver told reporters: "Presumably, we will be in position in the fall to award franchises." Later that month Tatum's 60 to 90 day window arrived via CNBC. In July, Silver said he hoped to finish deals "over the next several weeks".

By 20th October, Tatum's line had softened: "We definitely expect to begin announcing teams soon as agreements get finalized."

He also said there was "no timeline yet" on naming the clubs, and Reuters reported him saying an announcement would come in the "not-too-distant future". That is the most recent on-the-record guidance I can find. It's not a date.

One more wrinkle. Sky News's Mark Kleinman reported in October, as relayed by BasketNews, that franchise sales are unlikely to go through until the EuroLeague situation is settled. Last Word on Sports, in a piece carried by Yahoo Sports on 30th October, made a similar point without naming a source. If that's right, the London announcement depends on a negotiation that has nothing to do with London.

My read: names will arrive in stages rather than all at once. Reporting so far points to a rolling announcement, and SportBusiness, via Eurohoops, reported in June that London was likely to be offered first, followed by Paris. London would be the obvious headline to lead with. But I wouldn't plan a diary around any of this until the league itself puts a name on a press release.

Who is bidding for the NBA London team?

Plenty of people, none of them confirmed by the NBA. SportBusiness reported in June that more than five groups had lodged final bids for London. The list below is everyone I can find with a named outlet behind the claim. Bidders change partners, consortiums merge, and some of these names may already be out of the running.

The Tottenham subplot

This is the bit nobody could have scripted. City AM says the Lewis family ousted Levy from Spurs in September 2025. Fourteen months later, on City AM's reporting, they are on rival sides for the same basketball team in the same city. If you're looking for the gossip in a very dry corporate auction, that's it.

Levy is 64, has long-standing ties to American sport, and is working with Liberty Global, the majority shareholder of Formula E, and MSP Sports Capital co-founder Jahm Najafi.

The tech money

Arora, the chief executive of Palo Alto Networks, already has a foot in London sport through a stake in the London Spirit cricket franchise, Eurohoops reported. The Tanenbaum story is the newest and the thinnest. GiveMeSport gave him a 1 billion dollar bid fresh from selling his stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, but it named no original source, and I've found nothing from the man himself. Treat that one with care.

The football connection

The Reuben family's name comes from their stake in Newcastle United, and Boehly is a Chelsea co-owner, so anyone who follows the Premier League will recognise half this cast. It tells you who the NBA thinks can run an arena team: people who already sell premium seats at football. Our guide to Premier League hospitality gives a sense of the business those owners already know.

And the London Lions? They would like a seat at the table too. Chief executive Lenz Balan told City AM in April: "The only thing I can say is that we'd love to be in NBA Europe." He also said: "I think it would make a ton of sense for the NBA to have two clubs in London." That is his view, not the league's plan.

Could there be two NBA Europe teams in London?

Tatum's January comment to Sportico caused some confusion here. He said: "Two teams in each one of those markets that we know with certainty will have franchises there." In context, Eurohoops reported, he meant two teams in each major country: the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy and France. That fits the list of 12 cities, which pairs London with Manchester. It does not mean two clubs in the capital.

What will the NBA London team be called?

Nothing has been announced. No name, no colours, no badge. Anything you see on social media is a fan's guess or an AI mock-up. City AM reported in December 2025 that the London and Manchester franchises would be new teams rather than existing Super League Basketball clubs, and Silver spoke in January of groups "seeing an opportunity to create a new brand here". So expect a fresh identity picked by whoever wins. I'd also expect a football-style naming row within about nine minutes of the reveal.

Where would an NBA London team play?

This is speculation from start to finish: no London arena has been named. Five options have come up in reporting, and they range from sensible to already dead.

The Arena, London

The Arena, London is the obvious starting point, because it hosted the NBA in January and holds about 20,000. Gael Caselli of the arena's owners told City AM in December 2025 that the building had enough free days for a franchise, having staged 239 performances that year, which left 126 days spare. "We'll definitely look at it and be very interested in the project," he said, while warning: "There are too many unanswered questions about the league itself."

City AM added in September 2026 that it is understood the arena had been preparing to host the team until a permanent home is finished. That's reported, not agreed.

The Arena, London, seen from the River Thames, 20th August 2013. Photo: mattbuck, CC BY-SA 3.0

The catch is the calendar. An arena that works this hard already has a packed diary, from N-Dubz in March 2027 to Jorja Smith that July. Our guide to The Arena, London hospitality in 2027 shows how much is already going through the building. A 16-team league's home dates would have to squeeze in around it. Doable, on Caselli's numbers, but it would take some careful scheduling.

The Copper Box

The Copper Box in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is London's home of top-level basketball today. Its operators give a maximum capacity of 7,500 and describe it as the base of the London Lions. I can find no report naming it as an NBA Europe home, and at that size, against bids of 1 billion dollars, it would be a surprise. EuroLeague chief Chus Bueno told City AM in July that a small arena would not appeal to top talent, in a separate conversation about his own league's London plans. The same logic would apply to the NBA.

The Copper Box in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, 7th September 2013. Photo: Paul Gillett, CC BY-SA 2.0

The London Colosseum idea

City AM reported in May 2026 on plans from Jericho Estates, Peacock Gym, Torch Sports and architects Chybik and Kristof for a 25,000-capacity London Colosseum, close to London Stadium in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It would be the largest indoor arena in the UK, with the architects picturing an NBA Europe franchise and world championship boxing inside. GiveMeSport later linked Arora to it, without naming a source.

The landowner was not impressed. The London Legacy Development Corporation told City AM: "These reports are incorrect," and added "there is no agreement between LLDC and any developer, architect or project team to build this arena." So file that one under nice drawings. East London's appetite for giant crowds is real enough, as our piece on the London Stadium boxing capacity plan shows, but a planning consent is a very different thing from a render.

Battersea Power Station

The Athletic reported in August 2026 that land around Battersea Power Station was among several options being explored. It lasted six weeks. A spokesperson told City AM in September that the land needed for an arena is "not compatible with our future phases".

A new arena with the Lions

The London Lions want their own home. The club announced plans for a purpose-built arena in March 2025 with the backing of Mayor Sadiq Khan, and City Hall said it was helping to find a site, Eurohoops reported. No site has been named.

City Hall's interest in the sport goes back a while: Khan met Tatum in September 2024 and said "Basketball continues to go from strength-to-strength", and the Mayor's office proposed a basketball taskforce at the same time. That meeting was about growing the game in London. It said nothing about NBA Europe.

My read: if the league starts on time, The Arena, London is the only building on this list that could realistically stage a first season. A new venue is a decade-long conversation, not a 2027 one. That is my opinion, and nothing is agreed.

How does NBA Europe work?

NBA Europe is planned as a semi-closed league: mostly fixed members, with a few places earned on the court. It's closer to a franchise model than to football's pyramid, and that's exactly why it has split opinion in Europe.

How many teams will be in NBA Europe?

Sixteen. Twelve would be permanent franchises and four would qualify each year, NBA.com reported in July 2026. Teams could come from existing basketball and football clubs or be entirely new.

Those four places are where FIBA's competitions come in. Eurohoops reported in February that the two finalists of the 2026-27 Basketball Champions League would go straight into the first season, with two more places decided at a tournament in June 2027. A separate report from Gamereactor gave a different number for the Champions League route, and I haven't seen final rules, so treat that as the working plan rather than settled fact.

Virtus Bologna with the Basketball Champions League trophy at the Final Four in Antwerp, 5th May 2019. Photo: Nick.mon, CC BY-SA 4.0

What happens on court?

The reported format is a round-robin season, then playoffs and a finals series, played under FIBA rules with 40-minute games rather than the NBA's 48. ESPN reported in October that teams would play in their national leagues on chosen weekend days and in NBA Europe during the week, with larger rosters to cope. A salary cap is planned, but no figure has been published. Neither has a fixture list or a game count, whatever you may read elsewhere.

What is FIBA's part in NBA Europe?

FIBA is the NBA's partner in the league, not a bystander. The two announced their exploration together on 27th March 2025. FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said in December 2025: "Advancing further this joint NBA-Fiba project is great news for the European basketball community." FIBA also brings the qualifying route through the Basketball Champions League and the promise of a calendar that fits national team windows, which NBA.com says is part of the plan.

Where does the money go?

Tatum said in June that "85 to 90% of the economics" would stay in Europe, and in October he said the average permanent team is projected to be profitable by year three. Those are the league's projections, and sports start-ups have a long history of optimistic spreadsheets. Bids for permanent places were expected in a range of 500 million to 1 billion dollars, and Sportico reported bids of at least 500 million in all 12 cities.

When does NBA Europe start?

The NBA's plan is October 2027, in the 2027-28 season. Tatum told Reuters on 20th October 2026: "Our plan is to begin rolling out this project in October of 2027, which is a year from now." NBA.com sketched how it might look, inviting readers to "envision" a Paris team against Madrid on opening night and London at Istanbul the next. That was an illustration, not a fixture.

Note the careful wording, too. "Begin rolling out" is not the same as "a full 16-team season". Reports earlier this autumn raised a possible 2028 launch with a 2027 qualifier, Last Word on Sports noted. My read: October 2027 is possible but tight, with no teams named a year out, no fixtures and no confirmed home for its biggest market.

Why the EuroLeague matters to a London team

Europe already has a top club competition, and it does not want a rival. EuroLeague clubs rejected a formal NBA offer to merge, ESPN reported on 6th October. Spanish paper Sport put the offer at 520 million euros, according to Eurohoops. Chus Bueno, the EuroLeague's chief executive, warned that further fragmenting the market would be "a disaster", Reuters reported. Tatum's response was that the league is "prepared to proceed regardless".

The 2019 EuroLeague final in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, 19th May 2019. Photo: Vanbasten 23, CC BY-SA 4.0

London is a live front in that fight. City AM reported in July that the Lions are in talks to acquire an expansion franchise as the EuroLeague grows to 24 teams for 2027-28. Bueno said: "They want to become franchisees, they said it already." He also called London a place with "more risk", and ruled out Manchester as "way too risky". Reuters reported that new EuroLeague franchises were expected in mid-November, so that's the next date to watch.

So picture the possible outcome: two rival top-tier leagues, both claiming London, in a city that has never fully embraced either. ESPN quoted one NBA owner calling NBA Europe "a 20-year project", which is the patient way of looking at it. Tatum says the league won't stop. Bueno says the phone lines are open. The October talks in London, covered in the tracker above, may have moved things on. We just don't know yet.

Manchester's place in NBA Europe

Manchester is the other British target city, and it may be the more interesting story. Buss Sports Capital has bid there, The Athletic reported, and City AM reported in January that the owners of Super League Basketball's Manchester team were exploring a bid, potentially against the owners of Manchester City and Manchester United.

Club president Ben Pierson made the neutrality argument with some relish, asking: "do you lose half the city because the Man United fans aren't going to go to your games?" He also said: "We have the financial resources to put a bid together ourselves if it looks like it makes sense." That was January, and I've seen nothing since on whether that bid went ahead.

Co-op Live, Manchester, 7th April 2025. Photo: David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0

No Manchester arena has been named either. Co-op Live and AO Arena are the two big buildings in the city, at around 23,500 and 23,000 respectively on City AM's figures. The former gets its big basketball moment on 17th January 2027, when the NBA Manchester Game brings the Spurs and Pelicans over, three days after the NBA Paris Game at Accor Arena. Those are real NBA regular-season games, not NBA Europe, but anyone at the league reading the crowd numbers will be taking notes.

Liverpool isn't on the target list, so nothing should be read into M&S Bank Arena Liverpool for now, though a Manchester team would be a short trip for Merseyside fans. Manchester has a basketball history of its own, too. Team USA played Great Britain there in July 2012, in the warm-up for the London Olympics.

Nate Reinking of Great Britain and Kobe Bryant of the United States, Manchester, July 2012. Photo: Christopher Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0

What it means for British basketball and Super League Basketball

Done well, this would be the biggest thing to happen to the British game in a generation. Done badly, it hollows out what's already there. Super League Basketball is the top domestic competition, and it has come through a rough spell: City AM reports a long legal dispute with the British Basketball Federation, which went into liquidation.

SLB's interim chair Sanjay Bhandari has welcomed the plans, calling them "an exciting opportunity" for the league and "a significant development for European basketball as a whole". City AM reported in February that the London and Manchester teams are expected to play in both NBA Europe and SLB. Sky Sports also said in July that reports suggest both could field sides in the domestic league. That could plug two global brands straight into a small league's schedule. It would be odd, and potentially brilliant.

Caledonia Gladiators and Manchester Giants warm up at Playsport Arena, 26th December 2023. Photo: DaHuzyBru, CC BY-SA 4.0

The hard questions are for the Lions and Manchester's existing club. If a 1 billion dollar London team arrives with the NBA's marketing behind it, where does that leave the team that has actually been doing the work? Balan's answer is defiant: "We think we have a reason to exist, irrespective of if there's another team in the marketplace." City AM also reported that a EuroLeague London franchise might even play in a domestic league outside Britain, which would be a bruising outcome for SLB.

London Lions celebrate winning the Women's EuroCup at the Copper Box, London, 10th April 2024. Photo: FromMorningToMidnight, CC0

Don't forget the Lions' women, who won the EuroCup on home court in 2024. NBA Europe is planned as a men's league, and the British game's recent high point has come from a team it doesn't touch.

Former NBA player John Amaechi's view, as Sky Sports put it, is that the UK could use this to build the basketball communities and infrastructure it lacks. That's the prize. A glossy London team playing to corporate suites while community basketball gets left behind would be a poor return. My read: the league will be judged in Britain on the second part, not the first.

For the wider picture on where the sport sits on this site, our basketball hub brings the live dates together, and our American football section shows how the same story has played out for the NFL.

How to watch NBA Europe

No broadcaster has been confirmed. Eurohoops, citing Sports Business Journal and others, reported in February 2026 that Amazon Prime Video and YouTube were the leading candidates for global rights, and that NBC had shown interest. I've found nothing firmer since.

The regular NBA is a separate matter. In the UK, Sky Sports signed a long-term deal in October 2025 and Prime Video also shows live games. Neither report mentions NBA Europe, so don't assume that it comes with either subscription. If Prime Video does land the rights, the UK link is obvious: its sport chief Alex Green said after January's games that "These record audiences on Prime Video demonstrate an untapped demand for the NBA in Europe."

NBA London tickets and hospitality interest

No London team, fixture or venue has been announced, so what a night would look like depends entirely on the arena. At The Arena, London, premium guests would most likely be using the suites and lounges already there, and our guide to corporate boxes at London concerts gives a fair idea of how that works.

If you want to know when something concrete lands, you can register your interest on our NBA Europe London page. For NBA dates that actually exist, the Manchester and Paris games above are the ones to look at, and our NFL international games guide is a useful read if you're planning client days around American sport in Europe.

We will keep this tracker current as the league names its teams. Until then, the only honest answer to "who owns the NBA London team?" is nobody yet.

Photo credits: Cover: London Lions players in a huddle before a EuroCup game at Besiktas, 7th October 2025, by Zafer, CC BY 4.0. Adam Silver, 21st November 2014, by Keith Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Arena, London, 20th August 2013, by mattbuck, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Copper Box, 7th September 2013, by Paul Gillett, CC BY-SA 2.0. Virtus Bologna, 5th May 2019, by Nick.mon, CC BY-SA 4.0. EuroLeague final, 19th May 2019, by Vanbasten 23, CC BY-SA 4.0. Co-op Live, 7th April 2025, by David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Nate Reinking and Kobe Bryant, July 2012, by Christopher Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0. Caledonia Gladiators v Manchester Giants, 26th December 2023, by DaHuzyBru, CC BY-SA 4.0. London Lions women, 10th April 2024, by FromMorningToMidnight, CC0.