EuroLeague locks in expansion to 24 teams for 2027-28, setting aside the NBA's collaboration offer

At the EuroLeague owners' meeting in Lake Como, the decisive vote will settle on a destination: 24 teams. Europe's premier club basketball competition plans to grow to 24 teams from the 2027-28 season, adding eight places. The key point is timing: this agenda was set long before the NBA's collaboration offer reached the table.

In other words, this is a self-directed move, not a reaction. Before anyone named it, I had already seen its frame.

EuroLeague operates on a club-ownership model. Decision-making sits with the owners' board, not with a national federation or an outside governing body. That is why the Lake Como meeting carries a weight far beyond a routine administrative conference: it is where the structure of the European basketball market will be shaped for years to come.

The surrounding context is just as notable. The NBA has put forward a collaboration offer, and according to sources it “does not seem sufficient to establish any type of collaboration.” That offer is also not a buyout. At the same time, less than a year remains before NBA Europe is expected to launch. In the room, no NBA or FIBA representative is present — the decision is being kept inside the club-owners' circle.

That is the backdrop. The part worth analysing lies in the mechanism for allocating places.

Twelve clubs have applied for eight open places. Hapoel Jerusalem was added to the initial list of eleven applicants. The list includes Dubai, London and Paris — markets that reach beyond the traditional “European” frame. The 12-for-8 ratio says the most important thing: a EuroLeague licence is a scarce, valuable asset, distributed through a mechanism that looks like an auction.

Drawing on my experience of tracking games, I used to read a team's structure through each possession; now I read the structure of an entire league. From that angle, expanding to 24 teams before NBA Europe launches looks like a moat strategy: locking in clubs, markets and calendar slots to make a rival's entry harder. A tactic is not meant to be read; it is meant to see two moves ahead.

There is a detail here that demands checking against numbers. If 24 teams means adding eight places, the current base must be 16 teams. But EuroLeague operates with 18 teams. The arithmetic of the expansion does not match the known base figure. On a night without basketball, I turn to reading every number, and the first number will not hold still.

There are two ways to explain it. One is that the league's structure itself will change, and 24 is the destination after the base is adjusted. The other is that the wording was simplified in transmission. For a decision that shapes years, a two-place discrepancy is not trivial — it is a signal to read the official announcement rather than the summary.

The counter-intuitive point lies elsewhere. The story is told as a display of EuroLeague strength: proactive, self-determining, waiting for no one. But the data shows a defensive posture more than an attacking one. If the league were truly comfortable in its position, expansion would not need to be this urgent, and the four clubs eliminated from the 12-for-8 race would not have become a pool of candidates ready for anyone who knocks.

Those four losing names are the biggest risk group. They have motivation, ambition, and little left to lose in the current system. If NBA Europe needs a ready-made club network, this is where it will find one. A league that expands to defend itself may inadvertently build the very lineup its rival needs.

At the same time, FIBA's absence from the room leaves a legitimacy gap. FIBA is basketball's global governing body, yet it stands outside a decision that restructures the European club pyramid. When the stands are empty, data is the only evidence still speaking — and here, the data shows a three-way field of EuroLeague, the NBA and FIBA, each pursuing its own vision.

The most-cited scenario is two rival leagues: EuroLeague on one side, NBA Europe on the other. A collaboration scenario remains possible, but narrower than the market assumes. The NBA's offer is judged insufficient, and neither side will disclose its contents. That opacity is itself a variable.

The coming months will answer a more specific question than whether expansion happens: where will the four losing clubs go, and is a league that locks itself into 24 teams building a moat, or laying the groundwork for its rival?