Hapoel Tel Aviv has cleared an early but meaningful hurdle in EuroLeague's push to remake itself as a closed franchise competition, with the club confirmed among 11 pre-accepted candidates now heading into a deeper due-diligence phase, ONE reports.
The move is part of a wider structural overhaul under which EuroLeague, currently run on a 13-shareholder license model, wants to grow to 24 teams by the 2027/28 season by awarding up to eight new long-term franchises alongside the existing clubs.
More than 20 formal expressions of interest were submitted when the application window opened earlier this year. EuroLeague's board whittled that list down to 11 proposals judged strong enough on financial and organisational grounds to advance, with four more left on hold for now.
Hapoel Tel Aviv's fellow candidates include Valencia Basket, Dubai Basketball, Roma, Napoli, PAOK Salonika, Partizan Belgrade, Red Star Belgrade, Virtus Bologna, Paris Basketball and London Lions, according to the reporting.
Notably, city rivals Hapoel Jerusalem did not make the cut for this pre-accepted group, underlining how competitive the process has been even among Israeli bidders, per Sport5's reporting on the same list.
The 11 surviving candidates have already put forward binding offers worth close to €700 million in combined franchise fees, with EuroLeague projecting overall investment tied to the new franchises could exceed €3.2 billion over five years.
League officials are working toward a valuation target of roughly €4.3 billion for EuroLeague by 2027, alongside related initiatives such as a new ArenaCO body to help clubs fund and develop arenas, and fresh agreements with coaches' and referees' associations.
EuroLeague CEO Chus Bueno described the progress as reflecting "strong momentum" behind the new business model, pointing to the scale of the binding fee submissions and investment commitments already on the table.
Each of the 11 pre-accepted bids, Hapoel Tel Aviv's included, will now go through a more extensive review before EuroLeague's board makes its recommendations to an owners' assembly meeting scheduled for late September, when final approvals are expected.
For Hapoel Tel Aviv, reaching this stage keeps alive the prospect of a long-term, protected place in Europe's top basketball competition rather than the annual qualification battles Israeli clubs have long had to fight — though nothing is guaranteed until the September vote.
