- Maverick Carter, Lebron James’ business partner, is advising a group of investors looking to put together an international basketball league. UBS and Evercore are advising on the deal, while early backers include tech executives and a private equity firm with a stake in Carter and James’ media company.
Lebron James’ longtime business partner Maverick Carter—known as the negotiator behind James’ blockbuster lifetime deal with Nike—is working with a group of investors to raise $5 billion to create an international basketball league meant to compete with the NBA.
First reported by Bloomberg, Carter is advising the group on the deal, which plans to raise the money from private investors. UBS and Evercore will help the group raise funds, which are expected to come from institutional investors and from private high-net worth individuals. Early backers include Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice, former Facebook executive Grady Burnett, and the private equity firm SC Holdings. The PE firm participated in a $100 million investment round for James and Carter’s entertainment firm, The SpringHill Company, back in 2020. SC Holdings founder Jason Stein serves as a special advisor to The SpringHill Company, according to his bio on the company website.
Evercore, SC Holdings, Prentice, Burnett, and the NBA did not respond to a request for comment. UBS declined to comment.
James, who is close to Carter, is not part of the project, according to ESPN.
The possibility of an international rival to the NBA comes at a time when the league faces mounting questions over its decline in viewership. Since the start of the NBA season in October, the basketball press, league officials, and even a few star players have all pointed out that the league’s television ratings sagged compared to the year before. Through mid-December, the NBA’s television ratings were down 17% year-over-year, according to CNBC.
However, most of those declines can be attributed to cord-cutting rather than an aversion to the sport itself. In a December interview with The Athletic, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver pointed to the fact that the NBA had a thriving social media presence and had come off back-to-back years of record attendance as evidence that the game was still popular. “It’s not a lack of interest in this game,” Silver said.
In fact, the NBA’s new broadcasting deal, signed in July for $76 billion over 11 years, featured a plethora of streaming options with the likes of Peacock, Amazon Prime, and Netflix. As part of the agreement, the NBA also walked away from TNT, its partner of almost 40 years. The move portended what many sports fans already knew: cable is a thing of the past.
Even though basketball’s future will be in streaming, Carter’s plans for a new league indicate that the market for live sports remains alive and well. The new league would consist of six teams apiece for men and women, with players who would travel to eight cities around the world and spend two weeks in each location, according to Bloomberg.
Not to be outdone, the NBA is exploring the possibility of an international expansion. In December Andreas Zagklis, secretary general of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), said the organization was in “serious conversation” with the NBA about starting a league in Europe.