The European teams will just adjust to add release clauses to youth contracts the way they do in football. That way the NCAA teams would need to pay tens of millions to pry away talents, which would still make profit for the academies.

Could you see a future where even European youth have contracts with defined Buyouts needed to leave for other countries?

It’s been like that for many senior team players for years.

I’m from Estudiantes. Just gonna say… “first time?”

It’s just bigger fish eating the big ones instead of the big ones eating the small ones.

European youth basketball had problems even before NIL. If you look at Barca and Real youth teams you’ll see there are players from many countries. You know where they started playing basketball? In their home countries. You know how much their clubs got for them? Almost nothing. Luka started his career at Olimpija, then went to Real at 14 and Olimpija got almost nothing for him. They had one of the biggest talents in the world on their team, started developing him and lost him for nothing. And it’s the same for most those young players that go to Spain, Turkey, Germany…

As for Real, Barca and other top teams. Most of them don’t really develop many players for their first team. Most also don’t get a lot of money for their player going, neither is that their goal. Most Euroleague clubs don’t generate profit and they mostly don’t care. Some of them are financed by their football clubs, some are state sponsored, some just have rich owners that do it for bragging rights and/or money laundring… even at lower levels it’s mostly similar. European basketball just isn’t profitable, many clubs struggle to survive, and selling players doesn’t really generate huge profits. Especially not young players.

Player development has also been strange for a while in Europe. Most young players will never get a chance to play in Euroleague (unless they’re Luka level of talent). A lot of them will be developed at some struggling clubs, that can’t afford to buy better players or clubs that focus specifically on developing young players. Neither of those clubs will really get rewarded a lot for developing those players. Wemby for example played for Metropolitans, club with financial problems that actually went bankrupt after Wemby left. So they gave a chance to 1st overall NBA pick and it didn’t helped them at all. Giannis played in lower Greek leagues and Jokic played for club that was basically created by an agent to develop players.

So while NIL will change things, it won’t be the reason for struggles of European clubs. I also don’t think they’ll stop developing players. I think it will be great for players that weren’t top talents. Many of them would probably stop playing in Europe, because the money is not good. Now a lot of them will play at least 2 or 3 years in NCAA and maybe there will be some late bloomers. Most interesting thing will be to see what will happen with top European talents. I think most of them will get a chance in NCAA and become good, but some might struggle to adapt.

Just a little excurse, but the two players I mentioned in my post Nikola Kusturica and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje are actually playing against each other in the FIBA u17 WC final today at 1:15 pm New York Time.
Kusturica for Serbia, Boumtje Boumtje for USA.

Both played in Barcelona last year, one will go to UCLA the other to Duke and both are the favorites for #1 pick in 2028. So will be an insane matchup to anyone interested.

European teams will force kids to sign contract so they could get money from colleges later on

Gonna be honest, what you’re describing with the European youth basketball system is just a slightly more rigid version of AAU/travel basketball we do in the states.

In both cases, it’s absolutely horrendous for the children involved and primarily a money making tool for some. Kids should be kids, not in professionally sponsored 7u development clubs.

Why haven’t Europe’s elite sporting clubs considered paying competitive wages for these elite prospects so they don’t choose to leave?  If college freshman are making more money than the best players in the senior league the entire league is non-viable.

I don’t really see how the NBA will suffer from this. The top level European talent (or most of it) will still make it’s way into the NBA except now they’ll just have a year or two more experience with the American style of basketball.

Getting guys straight out of college instead of instead of holding their draft rights for a year or two while they stay in Europe also just seems like a better deal.

I understand why this sucks for European teams, and I’m not saying it shouldn’t be changed, I guess I just don’t see from your post how this is bad for the NBA?

respectfully that’s how it should work. the money is a signal for talent, whether it’s pro or youth league

I agree but there is really nothing you can do about it. Of course players want to go to the highest bidder it’s understandable athletes don’t have long careers and anything can happen. I guess Euro teams could also use their own young players more instead of americans who have to play because the team pays them so much.

Pay the players.

Good for them

If the EuroLeagues want to compete against the NIL enabled schools, then they will have to pay their junior players more. Either that, or deny travel papers for those kids so they can’t leave their countries.

The clubs could get som sort of compensation when player signs pro contract, at least that’s how it works in football

The inherent problem in all of this is which is also illustrated by the comments here. NCAA is not part of FIBA at all. So NCAA does not have to respect FIBA contracts and therefore will not pay any form of compensation. For instance Bayern youth player Kharvhenkov had a valid contract with the pro team and even gained minutes in EL. He went to NCAA for Arizona with zero compensation or anything for the Bayern Munich pro team.

The player drain is becoming so ridicoulous that NCAA is hiring 22-24 year olds now out of European leagues. Nolan Adekunle 24 year old wing player out of Germany was signed for Virginia. In the end FIBA would need to step in, but they are toothless or NCAA would at least to stop the extreme parts in stopping to sign also the 22-24 olds.

This will lead to a massive weakening of european basketball and the talent level will be lower -

How is this their problem? If all your NBA talent level are already going to the NBA, then nothing changes.

Now, almost all A-C tier talent in Europe will go to NCAA. No buyout, no playing time, nothijng -

Again, how is this their problem? If a kid is talented enough, he will get playing time.

So in this example, Barcelona spent years and millions developing those talents, scouting them, recruiting them, training them and now before they can reap any benefits they go to the US. Barcelona is not getting a buyout, not getting compensation and they are not getting any benefit on the court cause they will never play for their senior team. That entire investment is completely pointless now. Wasted money -

The problem here is that Barcelona didn’t sign them to a contract.

You’re no different from them. The problem is that they pay more than you.

You don’t care about the players themselves, you only care about the compensation you’re getting.

Every pro club/team knows that if you find a diamond, you sign them on a contract so if he ever makes it big, you can get something for it.

The big European teams need to challenge the NCA definition of a pro athlete. Playing for a pro team in Europe doesn’t count and that allows colleges to steal talents for free. If that gets changed everyone who extensively trained in Europe is ineligible for college sports and can’t be bought by NIL money.

Just dont watch college basketball at all. It’s all tv money.

not our problem

This sounds like a European problem. I’m not sure how they fix it.

Can they get write the contact so the academy team has first rights to the kids first professional contact. If the kids is good enough for the NBA or another league, that team pays a buyout. If he’s not, he going back to the academy he came from before college.

I feel like playing in NCAA probably isnt best for developing Euroleague game right? Unless they are top tier talent wouldnt it hurt them to go to 4 years of college instead of being a pro? Over the long run they could make more money and have a better career staying in euroleague

NCAA should just pay some sort of buyout to European teams, like in soccer

Counter: The NIL Era will be a economic boom for the European basketball development system. Before the NIL Era, teams would spend millions to develop a talent and would only make money on few and even then because they stayed in European markets those returns where smaller.

With NIL, teams now have the ability to make money on more players and a greater amount on each due to NIL. There is nothing stopping these clubs from also signing NIL based contracts with these athletes, taking some percentage ownership of their name image and likeness (NIL) thus when go to college, a percentage of those deals go back to clubs that helped developed them.

These clubs will now be able to make money off of their A and B -level talents sooner, opening up more spots and creating a bigger revenue stream. The ones who come back to their clubs may even have bigger market for their talent due to their time in the states.

This is huge win for player development!! You may see even more Americans born player enticed to Europe for development.

And yet another problem that would be easily solved by first getting rid of the fairy tale about the athletes in college being amateurs, and getting a CBA done between the players, the colleges, and the NCAA.

Maybe Europe should pay better? Know the value of your athletes and don’t try and artificially restrict their wages.

Yep. My Razorbacks got their ass trampled by Arizona and our sub had a mini meltdown because they had so many former Euroleague players. It sucks but that’s the current rules.

Ok, and what happens if they do invest way less money into their youth academies? Think through the full ramifications, don’t just stop there. Life isn’t a single action and single consequence, it feeds on itself.

If Europe stops developing talent, there aren’t going to be any more European players joining the NCAA. They won’t be developed, so therefore why would NCAA want them?

If the NCAA doesn’t want any young people from Europe, the problem is solved. There is no one paying young players. They can train those same kids for themselves.

Obviously some equilibrium between the two extremes will happen.

First entertainment then white collar jobs, lastly blue collar jobs. Europe is done.

FIFA has solidarity payments, why can’t basketball have the same

This is not what you want to hear, but the answer right now is wait and see. NIL is still a new concept, and the NCAA hasn’t stabilized how they want to determine rules and eligibility yet. Last year \(2 million was the biggest contract. This year it's \)6 million for two years. Next year it could grow again or shrink. The NCAA just made a rule limiting eligibility to 5 years. It’s changing too rapidly for any 3rd party to make long term decisions based on it.

The money players can get is just unbelievable to me. It’s hard to fathom that it’s that lucrative in NCAA.

In many respects, its making the product a bit worse, but at the same time, it’s great that the players themselves are pocketing the revenue they earn. Would be life changing for many, even those who don’t go to the NBA.

You are pointing out a couple of extreme outliers. 99%+ of players in these academies are still going to play for their clubs and the rest of Europe. The system isn’t going to change all that much.

So when those European athletes finally get their NBA contract, how much are those schools taking from them?

Because it seems to me what’s really happening is the athletes are taking advantage of a system that rewards them vs people who act as guardians but are really using the athlete to benefit themselves.

Very similar to what was happening pre NIL.

Payback for soccer.

Rick Pitino loves this one secret …

I mean this just goes to show that when youth development is built under the premise that it needs to develop elite players who will make money or bring trophies in for the club that developed it, it’s a system bound to fail that hinders the development of a majority of kids leaving them behind, only helps a select elite of players that would have made it anyway, and then, as soon as someone with more money than you comes along, it leaves you empty-handed, because if you build a system around elite development, you’ll let kids chase the most elite development at any stage. this is where imho having schools invested in youth development is key (premise: they need to be public schools, not the “elite” private high schools in the US): schools have a responsibility towards all athletes, they are forbidden from profiting off the sale of players, they should be financed by the state equally regardless of on field success. As a European, I wish my country became serious and built a system of school youth development in sports. Right now it’s a mess where athletes from lesser famous sport if they want to continue playing need to get involved with the armed forces, and schools are actively hostile to young people practicising sport.

More like saving USA Olympic basketball

Welcome to the South American Soccer experience

My bigger worry is that it will also erode the classic team-oriented style of play for European players. Top guys like Jokic, Wemby, Giannis and Luka (and also guys like Gobert and KP) all played against adults since a young age, and were immediately drilled into proper team play. Meanwhile, NCAA (and especially Big 12) focuses on individual development, thus destroying the defining point of development that makes European talent tempting. I also worry it will destroy chemistry for national teams.

This is pretty dramatic.

one ideia, what about teams be more professional and pay the player something. In Brazil is the same. and a lot of player need to abandon the sports at 17yo because they afraid to have no money AND an university degree when old

Honestly i still don’t know the logic why University that primary reason of existence to teach peoples skills given money as much as a small countries GDP for their athletic division

Everyone used to say college basketball will die too, you have to adapt.  

What’s gonna happen here is that the players that are good enough for the NBA will go to the US sooner. The ones that are not will return, and will play in the Euroleague teams. So the european teams will lose that talent for a few years, is it that damaging?

It’s payback for soccer.

Isn’t this just an international version of the problem happening between low/mid major college teams and high major programs?

I’m not sure in Boumtje Boumtje is the best example considering he’s born/raised in the US and has only been in Spain for 3 years. So it’s not talent drain from Europe so much as he’s just returning home after a couple years abroad

Wouldn’t a lot eventually cycle back to Europe though? With your Nikola K example, he goes to UCLA for NIL. I haven’t seen him, but being at UCLA doesn’t guarantee he’ll get drafted to the NBA.

Let’s say he does those and stays in the NBA his entire career, and he is truly lost.

But not everyone gets drafted obviously or stays in the NBA.

So it the pipeline could shift to

Europe then NCAA, and no nba offers, so back to Europe.

How would transfer rights and things work then? Would the academy club that trained him likely have the rights for him when/if he comes back?

And if there is an influx of Euros to NCAA, that pushes down Americans to other programs in college, or even overseas.

So Europe may actually see an influx of Americans that graduated or don’t want NCAA. There is a lot they’d need to work on in terms of system, but the athleticism and talent is there.

So the current Euro pipeline of Academy to senior team and maybe NBA could get supplemented

By Academy to NCAA, maybe some NBA/G League time and then Europe senior team.

But yeah, I’d imagine some contracts need to be written at earlier ages in terms of compensation and pick rights for talented prospects

Real and Barca do that to other clubs. They’re just getting a taste of their own medicine

Good for them! Thats awesome that the players are going to start making bank and we more talent in the ncaa. Sounds good to me!

Moronic post

So you’re saying that American universities will have to resort back to offering basketball scholarships to American kids? What exactly is the problem here again?

You want panic in the NCAA? Let teams draft 14 and up and run their own 2 year developmental league. Just get rid of this farce the call college athletics. Call it,what it is, a minor developmental league for pro sports

Why would a kid making millions need to go to school? He is not going to become an accountant or surgeon

Yeah this doesn’t feel appropriate at all on here

NIL is one of the worst things to happen to all pro sports.

It’s ruined the NCAA as a developmental system.

Players (their families) are just chasing the paycheques at that level instead of investing in their athletic development (by putting in work, staying at the same school for at least 2-3 years) to get the paycheque at the next level.

Eh, those clubs do same thing to other European clubs. Unsure of answer and banning u18s from moving would just allow teams to circumvent in other ways

if european clubs can’t match the salary ncaa provides there’s just no way the best talents won’t go to ncaa for the crazy money they get there at their age. though i do find it stupid that colleges are giving money to their students to play for them

Yeah I think a logical fix would be to require some sort of buyout where the American university pays the European club for the rights to the player

We’d also have European players here younger, going against competition we can judge easier.

I feel like you’re more concerned with the European youth basketball than the health of the NBA. It’s not like Luka would come to the NCAA and not get developed

THIS POST HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NBA.

You’re complaining that players are getting paid. Do you want some type of indentured servitude? That’s called slavery and it’s been abolished across the world for awhile now.

You’re literally complaining about youth getting paid after their schools exploited them financially for decades. It takes a very special person to think that is wrong.

European system in both basketball and football has a dark side. It’s just not well documented. For example, children will get injured and teams won’t pay for proper surgeries. It is not farfetched to classify some of these organizations as criminal.

I was under the impression that international students could not earn NIL money

Who cares bro 

Capitalism baby