The battle for ownership of NBA Europe's flagship London franchise has produced the league's biggest number yet: a bid of more than $1 billion, roughly £740 million, led by Palo Alto Networks chief executive Nikesh Arora, ONE reports.
Arora, 58, has assembled an investor consortium chasing what the report describes as one of the most prestigious and sought-after licences in the planned competition. He is no stranger to sports ownership, having previously fronted the 'Tech Titans' group that bought a 49% stake in the London Spirit cricket franchise for £145 million.
The London market is not short of suitors. Qatar's QSI, which owns Paris Saint-Germain, has been linked to a Paris franchise, while the RedBird fund behind AC Milan is pursuing a licence in its own city. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has also been mentioned as circling the London slot, underlining how contested the capital's franchise has become.
Independent reporting from ESPN and Sportico confirms the scale of interest: more than 120 prospective ownership groups have lodged initial proposals across the NBA's 12 target cities, with bids spanning from $500 million up to and beyond the $1 billion mark in the most competitive markets.
Those 12 cities are London, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, Athens, Istanbul, Rome, Lyon and Manchester. Twelve will hold permanent franchises in the new competition, with four further places determined annually through a qualifying system, taking the league to 16 teams in total.
NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum said the response from investors reflected serious confidence in the project. 'We're extremely encouraged by the final bids we received for permanent franchises in a new NBA and FIBA-backed league in Europe, which reflect the tremendous interest and momentum around this project,' Tatum said, adding that it represents 'the biggest influx of capital European basketball has ever seen.'
Commissioner Adam Silver has previously said the league is targeting a launch in the second half of 2027, run in partnership with FIBA, world basketball's governing body, which has long overseen Europe's domestic and continental club competitions.
No sale has been completed and the NBA has not publicly confirmed an ownership group for London or any other city — the figures reported so far describe bids, not finalised agreements, and the process of awarding franchises is still ongoing.
Still, the scale of the numbers signals how the NBA sees the European project: a business bet on basketball's growth on the continent large enough to draw tech billionaires, sovereign wealth funds and football club owners into the same bidding war for a sport that, in most of these markets, does not yet have a top-flight professional home.
