Family behind Tottenham Hotspur vies with club's former chairman Daniel Levy for NBA Europe's $1bn London team

The family which controls Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is vying with the Premier League side's former chairman to win control of a new European basketball league's $1bn (£741m) London franchise.

Sky News can reveal that the Lewis family is part of a consortium which has submitted an offer to buy the NBA Europe's team in the capital.

The Lewises have joined forces with the Checketts family, which has owned or invested in professional sports franchises including Major League Soccer team Real Salt Lake and the NHL's St Louis Blues.

The third leg of the consortium is the Eccles family, which has helped develop sporting facilities and events connected to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and the 2034 Games, which will also be held in Utah.

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People close to the situation confirmed that the triumvirate of families had tabled a bid for the NBA Europe's London team.

One intriguing subplot arising from the Lewis family's involvement in the auction is that it pits them against Daniel Levy, Spurs' former chairman, who left the club in apparently acrimonious circumstances earlier this year.

Sky News has previously reported Mr Levy's involvement in a consortium including Liberty Global and MSP Sports Capital, a former backer of McLaren Racing, which is also among the contenders for the NBA London team.

Joe Lewis, who invested in Spurs in 2001 for a modest sum and has since seen it grow into a multibillion-pound valuation, transferred his Enic ownership to a family trust in 2022.

Last year, he was reportedly pardoned by the US President, Donald Trump, having pleaded guilty to insider trading in 2024.

A source close to the London basketball consortium said it combined "some of the most experienced basketball and sports investors and operators globally".

The source added that the group was supported by "substantial institutional and private capital".

"Collectively, they represent a rare combination of basketball expertise, world-class sports ownership experience, state-of-the-art venue development capability and long-term capital - uniquely placed to support a franchise of this scale and ambition," the source said on Tuesday.

Both the Checketts and Eccles families own stakes in Burnley FC, who were relegated from the Premier League last season.

David Checketts has also held a number of senior roles across the NBA, while his family has been involved in the operation or revival of venues including Madison Square Garden.

The emergence of the consortium's involvement in the London NBA auction underlines the frenzy of capital chasing what has become one of the world's most sought-after sports franchises.

In recent months, Sky News has revealed that bidders for the team, or backers of offers, include the Liberty Global consortium; ABG, the owner of a stake in David Beckham's consumer goods stable; the Reuben family, which owns a stake in Newcastle United FC; and Nikesh Arora, the US technology billionaire who led the acquisition of English cricket's most lucrative Hundred franchise.

London has rapidly become most highly prized of the 12 new NBA Europe outfits, with other teams based in cities such as Berlin, Manchester, Milan, Munich, Paris and Rome.

The US National Basketball Association (NBA) wants to generate billions of dollars by selling the rights to the teams, with the first transactions expected in the coming weeks.

Advisers to the NBA received indicative bids in late March from dozens of prospective investors ranging from private equity firms and football clubs to wealthy individuals and media groups.

Owners of some of the continent's biggest football clubs expressed an interest in other locations, including RedBird Capital Partners, the owner of AC Milan, and Qatar Sports Investments, owner of the French Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain.

NBA executives met with some of the bidders for the European teams in New York last month during the weekend of the World Cup final, in which Spain beat Argentina.

"We have received significant interest from a range of prospective teams and investors for permanent franchise spots in a new league in Europe backed by the NBA and FIBA," Mark Tatum, NBA deputy commissioner, said in a statement earlier in the year.

"The level of engagement, and the scale of the bids, reflect the marketplace's belief in our proposed model and the enormous, untapped potential for European basketball."

However, Sky News reported in April that some prospective investors had expressed reservations about the proposed revenue and costs model associated with the new league.

Establishing an NBA Europe team will involve substantial infrastructure costs, with some uncertainty about the league's likely popularity given basketball's limited previous appeal in Europe compared to sports such as football and tennis.

The NBA has said that it will invest billions of dollars from its own financial resources to help get the league up and running.

The auction is being run by bankers at JPMorgan and Raine.

A spokesman for the Lewis consortium declined to comment.

(c) Sky News 2026: Family behind Tottenham Hotspur vies with club's former chairman Daniel Levy for N