Barcelona’s doubts over NBA plan could isolate Real Madrid in major split

The weeks roll by in the trenches of European basketball, with a constant drip of rumors that, as everyone waits for the definitive news that will push the whole situation into its next phase, swing moods and expectations. Each stakeholder imagines their own version of what the new reality could be, but for now all anyone has are breadcrumbs that show which paths the main players are taking. Those paths split constantly, and some people still hop from one track to another in a complicated game of hopscotch while major issues still hide their real face: the formulas, the numbers, the way Excel projections translate into the real world. Until that becomes clear… nobody knows anything. But the winds keep shifting. And will continue to shift, so…

So there is very little anyone can say now with absolute certainty. What is certain is that there are very few certainties, and that everything could change dramatically in the coming weeks. As things stand, the current trajectory leads toward a fragmentation of top-tier European basketball that should alarm—at the very least concern—everyone involved, yet no one seems to know how to stop it. The theory is simple; the execution requires concessions that have long looked improbable. Whether there is actual room for agreement between the NBA—pushing to land in Europe with FIBA at its side—and the EuroLeague depends on what lies at the edges of those extremes. Both positions are well known, and earlier in this first third of the 2025–26 season, they were laid out in this newspaper by EuroLeague CEO Paulius Motiejunas and George Aivazoglou, the NBA’s managing director for Europe and the Middle East. The cards—at least the broad outlines—have been on the table for a long time.

The question is how those cards get dealt, and who ends up with the winning hand. The NBA had opened a major breach in the landscape because it had become almost assumed that Real Madrid and Barcelona would jump to the new league, which in the most optimistic timelines would launch in 2027–28. The American giant thinks in terms of cities and markets, so its pins on the map land on Madrid and Barcelona. But everyone understands that this means Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. There is no other plausible scenario. And those two clubs are the ones that could truly cause an earthquake—an impact far bigger than the potential exits of ASVEL or Bayern, two of the departures most widely anticipated, or the move already completed by Alba Berlin, which left the EuroLeague this season for the FIBA/Champions League ecosystem.

Fenerbahçe, along with Real Madrid, Barcelona, and French club ASVEL—restless but far less consequential in this power struggle (in essence, the EuroLeague would not be heartbroken to lose ASVEL)—also has not yet signed the renewal that would lock clubs with permanent EuroLeague status into the league for ten more years, through 2036. That renewal is tied to extending the league’s agreement with IMG, the American marketing giant, through the same year. It is a key issue, connected to the central question: how to monetize a competition whose sporting level is outstanding and whose economic numbers are improving, but whose commercial reach still lags behind its on-court quality. When those cracks and unsigned deals became visible (first only behind closed doors), the NBA Europe project sensed its moment to burst onto the board with the strength of the world’s premier basketball brand. Talks between both sides have continued—sometimes intense, sometimes frozen—but always with the same background hum: how much better everything would be if the best parts of both models could walk together.

Barcelona is hesitating

What has changed now? This is where nuance comes in: nothing is final today that was not final yesterday, and nothing broken now is beyond repair tomorrow. But in this unstable situation, the winds matter. And it is now legitimate, as AS has confirmed, to believe that Barcelona’s move from the EuroLeague to NBA Europe—presumably alongside Real Madrid as part of a Spanish front watched by the entire basketball world—cannot be taken for granted. Again: this is not definitive, nor anything that couldn’t change again, because everything is fluid and still developing. But whispers began days ago suggesting that Barcelona’s “yes” to the NBA was no longer a sure thing. Yesterday Sport24 in Greece reported it—Greece being one of the blind spots in the NBA’s plan, which at this stage includes only one Greek team despite a basketball culture built on the Olympiacos–Panathinaikos rivalry. Greece’s government, like those in Lithuania and Italy, has publicly backed the EuroLeague model. And at the political level across Europe, there are questions about where the money for the new league would come from, where it would go, and how any newfound revenue—supposedly massive—would be shared.

Then Donatas Urbonas, always a reliable source via BasketNews, pointed in the same direction: Barcelona is close to returning to the EuroLeague fold and signing its ten-year commitment through 2036. The story gathered pace all afternoon because the implications would be huge. But, again according to AS sources, the process may accelerate but no one is sprinting yet: everyone is still talking, all doors remain open, and anything could still change. What is true is the core point: Barcelona now sees the EuroLeague’s new financial proposals more favorably, and at the moment the club does not have enough certainty from the NBA side. That reassessment also clearly reflects another factor: institutional relations. Just as political alignment between Madrid and Barcelona once helped drive joint projects like the failed football Super League, that alignment now seems far more distant after Florentino Pérez’s barbs at the last Real Madrid assembly and Joan Laporta’s response. For clubs of this scale, with football dominating their strategy, that matters.

So yes, Barcelona is now close to extending its EuroLeague stay. That is true, just as it is true that the situation may not be as heated as some sources suggest, those already declaring a definitive pivot. What is certain is that the club’s priorities have shifted dramatically, especially after high-level meetings between Barcelona executives and Motiejunas. Greek reporting also indicates that Fenerbahçe—another club that has not signed—is now more inclined to do so as the January 15 deadline draws closer.

EuroLeague hoping for major wins

That would be another win for the EuroLeague, though Fenerbahçe’s position has always been different. Even the NBA has explored alternative options for its potential Turkish franchise, with Galatasaray mentioned most often. But if both Barcelona and Fenerbahçe sign with the EuroLeague through 2036, and assuming ASVEL—less relevant in tradition and media impact—ends up moving to the Champions League orbit, the question becomes how the NBA responds. And what happens to Real Madrid, which would suddenly find itself much more alone—even though Madrid remains the club most open to change and to embracing whatever comes from across the Atlantic. That part has not changed. But the decisions of others could matter: if Real Madrid holds out past January 15, especially if it is the only major club to do so (a real possibility now), then the EuroLeague (and its ownership clubs) could make decisions about Madrid’s participation—or at least about the terms of its participation, given its status as a shareholder. By next summer the current EuroLeague licenses expire, so any club not committed to the next ten-year cycle could, in theory, find itself in limbo when the season ends.

We have been saying for a long time that the decisive moment was approaching. Now it really is: time is up. The EuroLeague renewal deadline is almost here, and if NBA Europe is supposed to launch in 2027, the project has to start taking shape immediately. January must be a key month. The league is expected to begin a public search for investors and to move forward with building its team list and ownership structure—the major knots in this entire story. But that also requires clarity on the many details that are still unknown, details that have not been disclosed even to internal stakeholders and which now feed doubts like the reassessment underway at Barcelona. By that same logic, a concrete, detailed, and truly compelling business plan from the NBA could flip the situation again. The winds could shift once more.

How does the NBA bring money into European basketball?

When the NBA knocks, everyone listens. That much is obvious—and even the EuroLeague admits it. The NBA excels where European basketball has struggled: marketing, hype, and revenue generation. But beyond questions about competition format and the choice of teams—which, controversially, sidesteps historic strongholds like Belgrade or Kaunas in favor of unexploited commercial markets such as London, Rome, and a Paris that only joined the EuroLeague two years ago—there is still no clarity about how the financial objectives will be achieved. Not yet. The figures being floated say each new team would need to bring an investment between $500 million and $1 billion. But it is unclear how that would actually work, because outside of investment funds and certain capital groups that spring immediately to mind, European clubs cannot realistically start from scratch with that kind of money on the table.

The NBA, which just signed a historic $76 billion media deal for eleven years, builds its system on enormous TV contracts—the engine behind its long-term, extraordinary economic growth. In Europe, it would be extremely difficult not only to reach those numbers, but even to multiply current revenues significantly, given that the new league would carry the NBA name but not its actual teams. Lakers, Knicks, and the rest would not be part of NBA Europe, not in the short or medium term. Ideas do circulate—like NBA Europe teams participating in the NBA Cup—but such concepts do not change the fundamental separation between the two competitive universes. At least not for now.

The NBA would also require arena upgrades to its standards, and BasketNews recently reported that such details could ultimately delay the launch. This could be especially relevant for Barcelona, whose long-planned new arena has been repeatedly delayed in recent years. The EuroLeague has been patient, as Motiejunas told AS: “Each year we believe it’s getting closer. We’ve discussed and seen the plans. Barcelona needs a proper arena. We know the football stadium is being rebuilt first, but the basketball arena must come right after. We understand football comes first, but basketball has to follow. We’re crossing our fingers—the club has a plan.” For Barcelona, the new league’s potential debut in 2027 could present a problem: they would almost certainly still be playing in the old Palau, with its outdated infrastructure and, crucially, its small capacity.

This is not to say the NBA lacks vision or the ability to deliver the answers. The issue is that those answers have not yet been presented. And in that sense, the next six to eight weeks must be decisive. The absence of a detailed financial plan cuts both ways: nothing is final because a brilliant plan could rapidly accelerate everything toward a new landscape; but the uncertainty is already prompting the shifts we are seeing, including Barcelona’s. Even if this means nothing for the long term, it certainly matters in the day-to-day developments that will shape the final picture. Potentially quite a lot. And perhaps—if we keep hoping, even as that hope fades—that all sides will continue talking and, though the common ground is hard to see right now, might still find a way to agree. There is time, but less every day.

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