EuroLeague CEO interview: ‘NBA Europe? We have never been stronger and will never disappear’
EuroLeague CEO Chus Bueno has turned an organisation in crisis into one ready for battle with the NBA over the future of basketball. In an exclusive interview, he explains why he believes his vision will keep clubs from defecting and that rival European leagues would be bad for everyone.
When former NBA vice president Chus Bueno was elected CEO of EuroLeague in January, amid the biggest existential crisis in its history, some in basketball circles feared the fox had not just been let into the henhouse but given a deep-fat frier and the colonel’s secret recipe.
His more diplomatic vibe seemed to trigger conciliatory noises from the NBA and a growing assumption that EuroLeague would capitulate to the US sports behemoth’s plans to launch a new top tier on this side of the Atlantic next year backed by billions of dollars from institutional investors.
The last few months have, however, made a mockery of those concerns. The charismatic Bueno has wasted no time in armour-plating EuroLeague’s position by moving to a franchise model designed to bake in loyalty from the big clubs, like Real Madrid and Barcelona, whose premium brands and huge fanbases could make or break it and NBA Europe.
Bueno has signed all 13 member clubs to 10-year deals, having sold them a rival vision to the NBA’s that involves raising €3bn in fresh capital through the sale of expansion franchises, including in London, and creating new assets. While the NBA insists some of those clubs are still keen to defect to its project, Bueno has thrown the ball deep into his old employers’ court.
“It has been a very, very busy few months since I took the job, but today we’re very happy,” he tells City PM. “I can say that we have never been better. We’re stronger, we’re together for 10 years, and the teams want to move to franchises, which means forever together.”
The former basketball player turned media executive and high-level administrator adds: “I know my former colleagues, I like them and we have constant communication. But I’m working for the EuroLeague now. They know that.”
Bueno insists EuroLeague is not afraid of competition, even if the NBA’s planned incursion represents a far bigger threat than its current rival, the Basketball Champions League run by world governing body Fiba, which has thrown its lot in with the NBA.
“It’s OK to compete. I mean, we compete with the BCL, it’s fine,” the Spaniard says. “One thing that people need to understand, EuroLeague will never disappear. Even in the worst case scenario, five teams go [to NBA Europe], the EuroLeague will still have 15 teams, so there’s no way that the year league will disappear.”
Bueno: Market is buying our vision already
Bueno’s plans to add new franchises from 2027, expanding EuroLeague from 20 to 24 teams, put the incumbent in direct competition for investment with the NBA’s pitch for 12 teams in markets including London, Manchester, Milan, Paris, Berlin and Munich.
He says EuroLeague’s vision, which also includes building a new media platform to house everything from streaming subscriptions, betting, merchandise and ticketing, has been validated by investor interest. It will open its data room to prospective franchisees this week.
“We are very confident, because the market is already buying,” says Bueno, who reports more than 20 franchise bids totalling €1.2bn. “We feel very strong about it, and we’re going to deliver the numbers.”
EuroLeague’s new franchises are likely to fetch €50m-€100m each, or around 10 per cent of the price quoted for entry to NBA Europe, which it has dubbed “a once-in-forever opportunity” to get in on the ground of the hottest new global property in the burgeoning sports asset class.
The NBA is understood to have received multiple offers for each of its 12 teams, with some, including London, exceeding $1bn – though not all markets have attracted the $500m target yet. Bueno suspects institutional investors such as RedBird will attach strings to those bids.
“They don’t finance risk, they don’t finance uncertainty, and if you put big numbers, there are big protections,” he says. “My former colleagues are very good, very sophisticated, so my assumption is that they’re successful raising some money. But I’m assuming too that it’s going to be highly conditioned. It’s normal. How you’re going to protect the money and get to a contract signing, there’s a big difference.”
Bueno had a stint at sports streaming platform Dazn before taking the reins at EuroLeague and believes the NBA Europe may struggle to nail down the big global media rights deal it needs to be sustainable while so many of the details remain unknown.
“I don’t even know the teams that you have, the players that are playing in that league. So if you force me to put a number, I will put a lot of protections,” he says. The NBA will have to follow EuroLeague’s lead and show its hand “because they have to start communicating to the world”.
Legal action off the table – for now, at least
The arms race between EuroLeague and NBA is also a battle for hearts and minds. Though haggling with Real Madrid dragged on until they finally signed their 10-year contract last month, Bueno had a trump card: in his plan, clubs are not working for someone else.
“Clubs here, they have the keys to the kingdom. They are running the show, basically,” he says.
“They don’t want to be seen as a trophy asset that I need to create my fanbase, but you’re just that – of course not. I don’t think that the NBA is thinking that, but we need to see all of that.”
The NBA still believes it can lure EuroLeague’s big hitters for a meagre €10m break fee per team. Bueno is keen to play down reviving the legal action that was in motion when he took office but says any defections would cause “a fracture and friction”.
He adds: “People will not understand why you sign it and leave. It’s like a kind of bad faith, or you were under tortious interference. When I came here, there were a lot of people thinking about lawsuits. I took it off the table. I said, ‘we need to focus on building the business versus creating a mess’.
“Now that they have all signed it, I’m confident they will be like this. The clubs are very, very comfortable with what we’re building, so I don’t want to go there. The situation would have to take me there, but I’m not focused on that.”
EuroLeague and NBA talks yet to click
Should NBA follow through with its plans to launch its European league in autumn 2027 without striking a deal that brings EuroLeague on board, both will suffer, says Bueno. “This is going to drive a lot of fragmentation and a lot of friction, and we don’t want that. We should both not want that, but it’s inevitable,” he adds.
“Fragmentation is going to create competition between our existing European top teams and the new teams, the media rights and the sponsorship side, and even new markets, because we have offers to go to markets like Rome, London and Berlin, and they’re in these markets too.
“It’s going to generate a lot of dilution of value, and then the execution risk is much, much higher. And if you have invested money, you don’t want execution risk.”
The NBA has said it would rather reach a deal with EuroLeague, and Bueno agrees. Several rounds of talks have achieved little so far, however, while the NBA Europe drumbeat has only grown louder.
The major sticking point is that EuroLeague insists all of its teams must be included and compensated for helping to build European basketball, while the NBA argues that clubs must pay – or find – big money to be part of its new league.
“The NBA is the last couple of weeks more and more loud. They’re going to come with the EuroLeague or without, and the teams are reacting to that. It’s like, let’s be prepared with the NBA, but let’s be prepared to fight,” he says.
“I wish I’d been here three years earlier, and we could have done a deal first and then go out to the market together. Hopefully – I’m an optimistic guy – we can still figure it out. I think that today we haven’t yet found the click, but there are a few conversations and, maybe from one week to another things can change.”