Jazz owner doesn’t believe NBA could face a real threat from a startup league anytime soon
Though LIV Golf’s introduction completely shook the sport to a point where it’s still trying to come back together even years later, at least one NBA owner doesn’t think that type of a fracture is possible in his league.
Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith shut that idea down on social media on Monday while responding to a former minority owner of the Golden State Warriors. The future of the league, he insisted, is “the brightest it’s ever been.”
Having ownership stakes across 4 pro sports leagues, I couldn’t disagree more. The NBA’s future and reach is the brightest it’s ever been. The global player movement & adoption along with a strong mobile experience is differentiated. Plus the willingness to innovate and change… https://t.co/J3Z3tO1kd9
— Ryan Smith (@RyanQualtrics) February 3, 2025
To be fair, Smith is a little biased here. As an owner of the team — he purchased the team for $1.66 billion in 2020, and also owns the NHL’s Utah Hockey Club, MLS’s Real Salt Lake and the NWSL’s Utah Royals — he very clearly benefits when the league itself does well.
The idea started on Wednesday after Chamath Palihapitiya said that he sold his minority stake in the Warriors over fears that a new professional basketball league was going to threaten the NBA. While that may seem like a far-fetched idea, it’s already happened elsewhere in the sports world and new basketball leagues are popping up.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund launched its rival league to the PGA Tour and inked several of the sport’s biggest names to ridiculously lucrative deals. The two sides have been engaged in talks of a merger-of-sorts for over a year now, but golf as a whole is still very fractured.
There has , backed by Maverick Carter, and they are seeking to raise $5 billion to get it started. That league apparently has no intention of directly competing with the NBA, but rather aspires to be the “F1 for basketball.” Unrivaled, debuted this year.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been open about wanting an NBA Europe league, too. The EuroLeague, National Basketball League in Australia and Chinese Basketball Association in China are three of the largest and best leagues in the world outside of the NBA, too. The NBA also launched the Basketball Africa League in 2019 in an effort to expand on that continent. The NBA is expected to expand again in the near future, too. Seattle and Las Vegas are frequently seen as cities that are at the top of that list.
But at least at this point, it appears as if a true threat to the NBA is a long way off. Considering how much the PIF spent to launch LIV Golf as a true competitor to the PGA Tour, it would take billions of dollars to threaten the world’s top basketball league that consistently brings in the top talent from across the globe.
