As details of NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s plans for a potential European venture have emerged, with grand designs of partnering with soccer conglomerates and Middle Eastern public investment funds to set up a league in the biggest, most attractive markets overseas, there is a potential problem in Paris.

The issue isn’t a dealbreaker, but it is an example of both a complex process and a reason why Silver’s mission for an NBA Europe is still in a conceptual stage.

Paris is one of the NBA’s favorite and most important cities outside of the U.S., the site of the 2024 Olympics, where the most talent-rich global men’s basketball tournament of all time was just held and where French sensation Victor Wembanyama grew up. The San Antonio Spurs, Wembanyama’s team, just played two games there and set viewership records.

France is a basketball-rich country that is now a pipeline for delivering talent to America. Any new league the NBA starts in Europe would ideally include a team in Paris.

There are not one but two suitable arenas in the city — Accor Arena, where the Olympic medal round was held and where the Spurs played two games against the Indiana Pacers last month, and Adidas Arena, a new, smaller but otherwise sparkling basketball venue on Paris’ north end.

Here’s the potential hurdle: An existing team, Paris Basketball, has exclusive rights for play in both arenas, according to a high-ranking basketball official in Europe. But that team already has owners and a budget that might be well below what Silver envisions.

“I think (the NBA would) prefer a sovereign fund paying them hundreds of millions for the right to play in Paris, but (Paris Basketball) has already locked up the market,” that source, granted anonymity so they could speak freely, told The Athletic.

Paris Basketball was founded in 2018 by former Minnesota Timberwolves president David Kahn and is owned principally by Eric Schwartz, a New York-based private investor and former minority shareholder of the Atlanta Hawks. Former NBA center Tiago Splitter is the team’s coach, and he has Paris Basketball in fourth place of the 18-team EuroLeague and tied for first in the French pro league.

The Athletic was unable to reach Schwartz, and Kahn declined to comment, other than to say he had been a part of meetings with NBA officials.

While in Paris last month for both Spurs-Pacers tilts, Silver attended soccer giant Paris-Saint Germain’s Champions League match against Manchester City and met with PSG’s top officials about potentially being involved in the new basketball league. One top European basketball source said PSG is interested. The city’s soccer conglomerate is owned by Qatari government-backed Qatar Sports Investments, is worth $4.2 billion and has unmatched brand recognition in France. By comparison, Paris Basketball’s budget for the 2024-25 season is $20 million, according to publicly available data.

When Silver addressed the media in Paris about his plans in Europe, he said, “We think that the commercial opportunity has not kept pace with the growth of the game” on the continent, and his goal was “to create a larger commercial opportunity, and not just because commercial opportunity suggests you can grow revenue but because we believe that with markets, if you can create proper incentives, you can get significant additional investment, and ultimately, that’s the way to grow the game at all levels.”

Silver was asked during the same news conference if a European soccer giant like PSG could be a partner in the new league, and he said “everything is still on the table.”

“Having had this long history from our operation of sports leagues, largely in the United States and a little bit elsewhere, seeing what’s happened in Europe, not just in basketball but in soccer, as well, it gives us the opportunity to say, all right, let’s take a fresh look,” Silver added. “What are the most effective practices for creating a commercially viable league?”

Where that leaves Paris Basketball, with its exclusive rights to both of the city’s arenas, is a lingering question. PSG could forge a partnership with Paris Basketball or, with well-lined pockets, could seek to build another new Paris arena (a lengthy and expensive endeavor). Or, it could seek a partnership with a team not currently in Paris.

For instance, another EuroLeague and French pro league team, ASVEL Basket of Villeurbanne, France (about five hours south of Paris), counts as its team president Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer and former NBA superstar Tony Parker. The club has a budget this season of about $16 million.

Contacted by The Athletic, Parker said, “If the NBA comes to Europe, we definitely would be interested in joining.” He declined further comment.

Hall of Famer Tony Parker serves as team president of ASVEL Basket. (Stephanie Lecocq / Reuters via Imagn Images)

There are other potential partners for the NBA in Europe with unlimited resources. Real Madrid and Barca of Barcelona, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos of Greece and Bayern Munich are owned by parent companies with lucrative soccer teams. Real Madrid’s basketball budget for this season is about $45 million — more than double what Paris Basketball will spend — because of the money brought in by the soccer club. Olimpia Milano of Italy is owned by Giorgio Armani and, last season, spent about $34 million on its basketball team.

ASVEL, Real Madrid, Barca, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, Bayern Munich and Olimpia Milano — but not Paris Basketball — are among the 13 clubs with licenses to play in the EuroLeague. Those license agreements are set to expire in 2026. There is a framework of an agreement in place to extend those licenses to 2040, but one team president in the EuroLeague told The Athletic extensions have not yet been signed by at least three of the clubs who are waiting to see what happens with the NBA in Europe. A single defection from the EuroLeague by a license holder could lead to a mass exodus.

The NBA’s main partner in possibly establishing a new league in Europe, FIBA, the international governing body for basketball, wants participating teams to also play in their own national leagues and qualify for competition in the new league based on merit or performance in their own countries.

That’s how FIBA’s Champions League — a competitor to the EuroLeague — currently operates and would be a departure from the licensing setup of the EuroLeague in which the 13 teams with licenses are in each season, even if they perform poorly in their own national leagues. In the EuroLeague, only five teams from throughout the continent can play their way into a season.

The NBA and FIBA also would have interest in a club in or near London — a city of nearly 9 million people with about 15 million living in the greater metropolitan area surrounding the England and United Kingdom capital.

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The London Lions are now owned by tech giant Tesonet, a minority owner of EuroLeague and Lithuanian giant BC Zalgaris, and would appear to be on sounder footing than they were at this time a year ago. The club nearly folded before Tesonet’s 11th-hour purchase.

The London market — or, more broadly, the United Kingdom — could be a place for the NBA and FIBA to introduce as a partner one of the Middle Eastern investment funds to which they are already linked.

As an example, Manchester City’s multibillion-dollar soccer franchise is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, through the Abu Dhabi United Group out of the United Arab Emirates. The chairman of Manchester City is another Emirate, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, whose brother, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, runs the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism.

The Al Mubarak family has expressed interest in NBA ownership (though sovereign wealth funds currently cannot own more than 20 percent of any NBA franchise). The NBA has hosted preseason games, and USA Basketball, which is funded by the NBA, held exhibition games the previous two summers in Abu Dhabi — hosted by the department Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak oversees. The Abu Dhabi culture department is hosting the EuroLeague final four this spring, a $25 million payday for the league.

The NBA also has a partnership with Emirates Airlines, owned by a Dubai-based fund that now sponsors the league’s in-season tournament, the NBA Cup. Dubai is only 90 minutes from Abu Dhabi.

Another Middle Eastern fund would be involved if PSG jumps into Silver’s European venture — a fund that is already active in the NBA. In 2023, the Qatari Investment Authority, the parent company of the fund that owns PSG, purchased about 5 percent of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s Washington Mystics and NHL’s Washington Capitals. That purchase made the Qatari fund the first sovereign wealth fund to invest into a major U.S. professional sports team.

Silver is targeting a March meeting of the NBA’s 30 team owners (called the board of governors) to make a presentation for his vision in Europe and share with them the information he and his staff gathered in discussions with numerous European stakeholders over the last few months.

“They always say ‘2026’ for the NBA in Europe,” the EuroLeague team president said. “Well, it’s 2025. What’s going to happen? Everybody wants to know.”

— Also reported from Paris, Geneva and Berlin.

(Photo of Adam Silver: Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images)