The NBA's creation of a new league in Europe is right on track. The NBA plans to name the winning bidders for the 12 permanent franchise members of the new league in the next 60 to 90 days. Those teams will be located in the following cities:

• Rome, Italy
• Milan, Italy
• London, England
• Manchester, England
• Paris, France
• Lyon, France
• Madrid, Spain
• Barcelona, Spain
• Berlin, Germany
• Munich, Germany
• Athens, Greece
• Istanbul, Turkey

NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum has been heading the project on the league's behalf. Tatum said the league remains on track to debut in October, 2027.

"We're on a very, very quick timeline here," Tatum said. "We're going to identify the right partners in the right cities, and we're going to take as much time as we need in order to identify those right partners. We're talking not only existing basketball teams in the ecosystem, but we're talking to soccer teams that currently don't have basketball teams that are interested, and we're also talking to individuals and other entities who don't have a basketball team but want to invest in a basketball team."

Tatum said that the European teams could eventually play NBA teams in preseason games. Eventually, Tatum said that the two leagues could combine and play against each other in the Emirates NBA Cup. Tatum also said that league is working with streaming partners for the broadcast component for the new league.

"There has been an incredible amount of inbound interest on taking those games and distributing them not only throughout Europe but globally," Tatum said. "We have no doubt that it will create some global interest, and therefore media partners are very interested in carrying that content."