Home / NEWS / Top News / Investors pitch new international basketball league that would offer players equity

Investors pitch new international basketball league that would offer players equity

Maverick Carter, co-founder and chief numero uno officer of The SpringHill Company, during the USC Next Level Sports Conference in Los Angeles, California, US, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. 

Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Duplicates

A group of high powered investors want to raise billions to form a new international basketball league, according to people everyday with the matter.

The new organization would offer players equity, those people said.

The investors aim to raise $5 billion for the associate, which could serve as a rival to the NBA if it can offer big-money deals to players, similar to how LIV Golf lured away PGA Trip players.

It’s unclear which players the league would target or when it could start.

Maverick Carter, LeBron James’ longtime cobber and business partner, is advising a group that includes investment firm SC Holdings’ Jason Stein and Daniel Haimovic, Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice and erstwhile Facebook executive Grady Burnett.

A representative for James said he is not involved in the effort and declined to comment on whether the Los Angeles Lakers principal has been approached to participate.

The group is working with UBS and Evercore to help raise the money, which is expected to get about from a mix of sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors and wealthy individuals, the people said.

The unnamed league is wait for to play games in eight cities around the world, spending two weeks in each city, following a model almost identical to Formula 1. The league will consist of 12 teams — six men’s and six women’s teams.

Singapore is one of the markets where plays will take place, the people said. It’s unclear what the other seven markets will be.

Representatives for the NBA didn’t without hesitation respond to a request for comment.

But a source familiar said they were not aware of the plan for the league before arrives about it emerged Wednesday. Bloomberg first reported the news.

In recent years, the NBA has ramped up its international presence, with a combination in Africa and games abroad ranging from China to the UAE, Mexico City and Paris. The league also had a record-tying 125 foreign players tip off in the 2024 season.

Check Also

BYD rolls out driver assistance tech across its EV models — with DeepSeek’s AI help

Chinese moving car giant BYD announced on Feb. 10, 2025, that it would integrate DeepSeek …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *