The NBA is preparing to build a European basketball business where permanent franchises could command reported buy-in fees of $500 million to $1 billion each. The league is targeting October 2027 for the launch of a 16-team competition, with 12 permanent clubs and four annual qualification spots. More than 20 investment groups have reportedly shown interest in the project.

That makes NBA Europe more than a new basketball competition. It could become one of the NBA’s biggest international business ventures, with money coming from franchise buy-ins, media rights, sponsorships, ticketing and licensing. But there is already a problem over who gets to share in that upside.

“It’s clearly being built on the backs of current NBA players, and prior NBA players, on the whole cachet that they brought to this league,” NBPA executive director David Kelly told Front Office Sports. “And then to start a rival league that they do not participate in, participate in the economics of, we have a very serious problem with that.”

The issue comes down to Basketball Related Income, or BRI. NBA players currently receive 49% to 51% of defined BRI under the CBA, but revenue generated through a separate international operating league does not automatically enter that pool. That means NBA Europe could generate its own media, sponsorship and game-day revenue without automatically triggering the same player share that applies to the NBA’s domestic business.

Kelly made clear that the union is not demanding the full 51% for NBA Europe. It is arguing that the players should not be left with nothing.

“Like right now we get 51% of basketball-related income from the NBA,” Kelly said. “NBA Europe, should it be 51%? No. Should it be zero? Of course not.”

And the amounts being discussed are big enough to make that distinction matter. Reports have put NBA Europe’s permanent franchise buy-in fees at between $500 million and $1 billion per team. With 12 permanent places in the proposed structure, the reported range would imply $6 billion to $12 billion in franchise buy-in fees if every permanent spot commanded a fee within that range.

But the franchise fees would only be the beginning of NBA Europe’s commercial model. Adam Silver has warned investors that the project will take time to mature, but the NBA is clearly building it with a much larger commercial ambition than simply staging games between European clubs.

NBA Europe is being designed as a separate commercial entity, with JPMorgan Chase and The Raine Group advising on the business structure. The NBA is trying to build a new commercial asset in Europe. The NBPA wants to know whether the players whose names, careers and global popularity helped make that asset possible will share in its economics.

The timing could make the dispute much more important than it looks today. The current CBA runs through June 30, 2030, but either the NBA or NBPA can opt out by October 15, 2028. If either side does, the agreement would end on June 30, 2029.

NBA Europe is targeted to begin in October 2027, roughly one year before the October 15, 2028, opt-out deadline. If the league starts on schedule, the NBPA could have its first real set of NBA Europe financial data, including franchise fees, broadcast deals and sponsorship revenue, before the two sides decide whether to keep the current CBA in place.

And Kelly has already made clear that the union sees the current agreement as the starting point, not the finish line.

“Under the current CBA, arguably they can do it. Under the next CBA … they would not be able to if we negotiate it the way we want to negotiate.”

Silver has acknowledged that the league is still working through how its player-compensation model would fit into Europe.

“Our lawyers are thinking hard of how we can take a system that’s now known to U.S. sports as sort of a cap-based system and a revenue-sharing system with players and how we can apply that in a European framework,” Silver said in September 2025. “Nothing is easy here… but the response has been tremendous.”

The league has not publicly announced a revenue-sharing framework for NBA Europe, and Kelly said the two sides have not formally negotiated the issue yet.

There is also a precedent for an NBA-FIBA international competition operating outside the NBA’s domestic BRI structure. The Basketball Africa League, launched jointly by the NBA and FIBA in 2021, operates under a separate legal and commercial structure, with its revenues kept outside the North American BRI pool.

It does not settle NBA Europe’s revenue question. But it shows why how the league is structured could matter almost as much as how much money it makes.

NBA Europe is the newest financial issue between the sides, but it is not the only one. Kelly also wants changes to the second apron, which has become another major point of disagreement between the league and its players.

“We had a very good system that was working,” Kelly said. “I think parity was the excuse that was used to put in something that’s really about cost control.”

The NBA sees the second apron differently.

“The goal, in essence, is that every team, regardless of market size, has a roughly equal chance to compete, and to run a rational business,” Silver said.

Kelly’s broader complaint is that the rules make teams less willing to spend on players once they approach the second apron.

“The system puts all of that weight on the player because the ownership has made clear that they’re not going past the second apron because of all of these parade of horribles that happen if you go past the second apron.”

The effect of the second apron can already be seen in the way teams handle young players and rising salaries. Denver’s August trade of Peyton Watson to Cleveland came after Watson agreed to a four-year, $88 million contract, with the Nuggets receiving draft compensation and no player salary in return.

Denver was already carrying a payroll of roughly $220 million, and keeping Watson’s new deal would have increased its second-apron exposure. The Nuggets ultimately chose to turn the young player into draft capital rather than carry the additional salary.

For the NBPA, that is the point: the league’s spending rules can change the value of a player’s next contract before a team even decides whether it can afford to keep him.

The Money Fight Is Just Beginning

Potential markets include London, Manchester, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Milan, Munich, Berlin, Athens and Istanbul, while established basketball clubs, football organizations and new ownership groups are all part of the wider picture.

But individual team selections, ownership arrangements and the final commercial agreements have not been completed.

That uncertainty matters because the players are asking for a share of an economic model that the NBA itself is still building.

Kelly said the union and league have not formally negotiated NBA Europe revenue sharing yet.

“There’s just pleasant conversations at this point in time laying out some of what our issues are,” Kelly said. “But when it comes time to actually negotiate the CBA, we are very firm on some of the things that are important, and that need to change.”

That leaves the biggest question unanswered: what does the players’ share of NBA Europe’s economics actually look like?

The NBA has not announced a framework. The NBPA has not demanded the full 51% BRI share. And NBA Europe itself is still being built.

But the clock is already running.

By the time the opt-out window arrives, NBA Europe could have its first season of real financial results behind it.

By then, NBA Europe may have gone from an idea with reported billion-dollar ambitions to a real business with real revenue.

And if that happens, the argument over who created that value and who gets to share in it will be much harder to avoid.