Investors Seek $5 Billion to Form Basketball League to Rival NBA
January 16, 2025
(Bloomberg) — A group of investors being advised by Maverick Carter, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James’ business partner, is seeking to raise $5 billion from private capital sources to form an international basketball league to rival the National Basketball Association, according to people familiar with the matter.
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UBS Group AG (UBS) and Evercore Inc (EVR). have been tapped to help raise the money, which may come from wealthy individuals and institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds, according to people who asked to not be identified as the information is private.
Other backers include Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice, former Facebook executive Grady Burnett, and the investment firm SC Holdings, which is led by co-founders Jason Stein and Daniel Haimovic.
Representatives for Carter, UBS, SC Holdings, Prentice and Burnett declined to comment. Evercore didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The league is envisioned to comprise six men’s and six women’s teams, with games played in eight cities around the world with two weeks in each city, the people said. The global rotation is modeled on a similar schedule to that of Formula 1 races, and Singapore is one of the markets where games would be played.
The new basketball league’s backers face significant challenges. Other startups, such as ones trying to compete with the NFL, as well as domestic basketball leagues in Europe and Asia have so far struggled to break through in the contest against the biggest and best-known leagues.
The move comes after the NBA’s return to China following an absence of several years, which is rekindling interest in the game across the world’s No. 2 economy. That entrenched popularity means it will be hard for any fledgling league to compete for air time.
Since running into trouble with China’s government in 2019, the NBA has been pushing its international expansion elsewhere. It has held in-season games in Paris since 2020, while the Celtics played preseason games in Abu Dhabi in October as part of the NBA’s third annual trip to the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The NBA is considering opening a regional office in the Middle East, one of the few areas it doesn’t have an on-the-ground presence, Bloomberg News has reported.
Still, the market is expanding. Live sports streaming is growing rapidly especially across Asia, where local players have splurged on licenses for western leagues including Major League Baseball and the English Premier League. More local attractions like Indian cricket and South Korea’s pro baseball league have also helped drive advertising and merchandise sales.
The NBA and MLB have sought to capitalize on their popularity in Asia with showcase games, including bringing the LA Dodgers and Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani to the region. Soccer clubs are also increasing their international matches, while the National Football League has a growing series of games played outside the US.
—With assistance from Sohee Kim.
(Updates with context about Asian market from the sixth paragraph.)
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