The Futures Basketball League will launch in April 2027, bringing 120 of the best under-18 boys basketball players in the country together on 12 regional teams. The league announced its plans on Tuesday, with backing from LeBron James and Kevin Durant and a promise to pay players for their name, image and likeness. The first season will run from April through August, with 10 weekends of games in major United States markets and a national championship weekend to finish. The league wants to replace the patchwork of summer tournaments and travel leagues that now shapes the youth game.
How the Futures Basketball League will work
The Futures Basketball League will take players from the high school graduating classes of 2028 through 2031. The 120 players will be spread across 12 regional teams and will play each other every week in front of a national audience. Games will be streamed or shown on national television, though the league has not yet named its media partners. The schedule will fit around the high school season, the NCAA live periods, the NBPA Top 100 Camp and USA Basketball commitments. The league has already signed some top prospects to name, image and likeness agreements and will announce its first players in the coming weeks.
Players will be paid for their name, image and likeness in cash, in equity subject to administrative approval, or in a mix of the two. The league will also provide coaching, training, mentorship and education as part of a single system, rather than leaving development to separate teams and tournaments. That is the core of the pitch to players and families: one league, one schedule and one set of standards for the best prospects in the country. The Futures Basketball League says the current setup spreads the top 150 players under 18 across more than 200 teams in seven different leagues in the spring and summer.
James and Durant lead the backers
The founding partners and team owners include LRMR Ventures, the company of LeBron James and Maverick Carter, and Boardroom Sports Holdings, the company of Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman. Former No. 1 draft picks Derrick Rose and Paolo Banchero have joined as team owners. Gary Vaynerchuk and Ryan Harwood, Ezra Kucharz, and Jason Stein and Daniel Haimovic of SC Holdings are also among the founding owners. Stein is the Futures Basketball League’s chairman and co-founder. He has said the league wants to work with footwear companies rather than shut them out, and that it plans to sign sponsorship and media-rights deals.
Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League, founded in 2010, is the biggest of the current circuits. For the 2027 high school class, 68 of the top 100 prospects play in Nike’s league, compared with 19 in the Adidas 3SSB circuit and five each in the Puma Pro16 and Under Armour circuits. The Futures Basketball League overlaps with that calendar, running through the spring and summer, and its founders say the aim is to give the best players one central competition instead of a set of separate ones.
What the Futures Basketball League still has to settle
Several parts of the Futures Basketball League plan are still to come. The league has not named its 12 team markets, its full schedule, its media partners or its sponsors, and those announcements will follow in the coming weeks. No players have been named yet, though the Futures Basketball League says it has signed prospects across all four classes. The first player announcements are expected in the coming weeks. The league has named Connor Schell as a special adviser on content, production and distribution. Schell was the global head of content at ESPN, co-created 30 for 30 and was executive producer of The Last Dance.
Each team has been priced at $6 million, according to reports, with investors receiving equity in the league rather than buying a single franchise. The league expects to name its first players in the coming weeks.