EuroLeague at 24 Teams: The Schedule Race Before NBA Europe 2027 Arrives

“The phone lines are open.” Chus Bueno said it in a flat, unhurried voice, the way someone opens a meeting-room window and turns back to the table. Behind those four words sits EuroLeague’s entire posture in negotiations with the NBA over a new competition in Europe: the door is open, but the people inside the room know exactly what walking out costs. On 6 October, an NBA proposal was rejected. Bueno did not publish the terms. He left a different signal instead: in mid-November the league will announce up to eight new long-term licences, taking the field to 24 teams.

Three fragments, laid side by side, form a map. A proposal shut down, a list of licences about to open, and an NBA Europe project for 2027 waiting at the end of the corridor. In my line of work, weeks like this demand slow reading: applause echoing in an empty gym is also a news item, and a line like “the phone lines are open” sometimes carries more weight than a transfer bulletin.

EuroLeague runs as a joint-stock company owned by its own clubs. Thirteen teams hold equity, signed to ten-year franchise agreements, each stake marked above €80 million and forfeited outright if a club walks away. That structure explains why every conversation about the league’s future begins with a question about the rulebook before it ever reaches money.

The financial picture underneath is less settled. Only about 40% of licence holders are considered financially self-sustaining; the stated target is to bring most, then all, to sustainability within five years. This is a cost-controlled collective more than a self-funding commercial entity. When an organisation like that hears a NBA-backed league will launch in 2027, the first reaction is not a press conference. It is a contract review.

The hardest part of expanding to 24 teams sits in the calendar. A double round-robin with 24 teams produces 46 rounds; an 18-team league needs roughly 34. The real price of expansion sits in twelve extra rounds crammed into a season already full of domestic-league dates and national-team windows, not in the eight new licences. A single round-robin of 23 rounds would shrink the fixture list and shrink media-rights value with it. No broadcaster pays more for fewer games.

So 24 teams forces a format decision: conferences, regional groups, a play-in round, or asymmetric scheduling. Each option carries a cost. Splitting into groups dilutes the representative quality of a league built on the principle that everyone plays everyone. Asymmetric scheduling pushes the competition into a sporting-fairness argument, precisely the ground where EuroLeague has been criticised for years, because entry has largely come through licences rather than results.

One point matters more than the rest: the eight new licences will most likely be structured in two tiers. The thirteen shareholders keep equity and control; the incoming group receives long-term licences, with or without equity. That term has not been disclosed and it is the single largest variable in the whole plan. Without equity, the league adds revenue without diluting power. With equity, every incumbent’s share is thinned, and the €80 million mark itself starts to wobble.

At the labour-market level, 24 teams means roughly 30 to 35% more roster slots at the elite European level. That pushes up the price of rotation-calibre players, European and non-NBA American alike. Based on my experience tracking games across both sides of the Atlantic, this is the group least mentioned in every rights-fee debate, yet it is where league structure touches players’ lives fastest.

Read backwards, the phrase sounds more like internal reassurance than an invitation. In negotiations, the person saying it usually needs to keep his own shareholders calm rather than answer a counterpart.

The rejection on 6 October, with its terms withheld, should also be read structurally. Two things define EuroLeague: a link to domestic-league sporting merit and a Final Four staged in a single city. A closed franchise league run by the NBA cannot recreate the first without accepting the European pyramid. That is most likely the real sticking point, not the revenue split.

The €80 million-plus valuation, forfeited on exit, plus penalty clauses and a re-entry price set by the league itself at the moment of return, form a three-layer fence. A fence only means something if someone wants to leave. And the genuine threat is not losing stars, who left for America long ago, but losing the mid-tier wage base, where European clubs once held a cost advantage. Transfer news is never dry; it tells the story of lives turning sideways.

If NBA Europe launches and picks time slots that avoid head-to-head clashes with EuroLeague’s midweek inventory, the consequence is concrete: European viewers get pushed into a two-subscription model. At that point “loss of value” stops being a feeling and becomes a line in a broadcaster’s spreadsheet.

In mid-November, when the licence list is published, two things need answering. Whether the new entrants pay a fee and receive equity. And the harder one: whether the league publishes the competitive regulations for a 24-team season at the same time. If the rulebook arrives later, the calendar is still being bargained over. You call late at night; only near dawn do you hear the answer.

A full gym or an empty one, the law of the ball stays the same, only the players change. The law of a league is different: people write it, and they rewrite it whenever someone opens another line.