LeBron James and Kevin Durant back an NIL league for top U18 players

A new youth basketball league backed by LeBron James and Kevin Durant launched on Tuesday with a plan to gather 120 of the country's best under-18 players on 12 regional teams and pay them through name, image and likeness deals, ESPN reported. The Futures Basketball League will play its first season from April through August 2027, and its backers are betting that the most valuable teenagers in the sport should be paid and coached like professionals before they reach college.

The pitch goes straight at the grassroots system that has long been run by shoe companies. Jason Stein, the league's chairman and co-founder, told ESPN that the top 150 players under 18 play on more than 200 teams in seven leagues each spring and summer. Those circuits rarely play one another, which means the best players do not always face each other, and many of them earn nothing for their participation. Stein's answer is a single national season in which every game counts.

The ownership group reads like a sports business who's who. According to the league's launch announcement, founding partners and team owners include LRMR Ventures, the fund run by James and Maverick Carter; Boardroom Sports Holdings, led by Durant and Rich Kleiman; former NBA star Derrick Rose; Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero; Gary Vaynerchuk and Ryan Harwood; and Stein's SC Holdings, which is backing the league financially. Carter and Kleiman sit on the board alongside Stein.

The economics borrow from pro leagues. The league said the price to buy into a team has been $6 million, with investors also getting equity in the league, ESPN reported. Rose will run the Chicago team. Stein plans to sell sponsorships and a media rights deal, and the league has named Connor Schell, the former ESPN content chief who co-created 30 for 30, as a special adviser on production and distribution.

For players, the hook is money without giving up eligibility. Players can take their NIL compensation in cash, league equity or a mix of both, and remain free to sign deals with other brands, including footwear companies, the league said. Stein told ESPN that players will keep their high school and college eligibility. The league declined to say how much it will pay, though Rose said the amounts could be "life changing." The league said it has already begun signing prospects from the high school classes of 2028 through 2031 and will announce its first players in the coming weeks.

The season will run across 10 league weekends of live events in major U.S. markets and end with a national championship weekend. The schedule is designed around the high school season, NCAA live periods, USA Basketball commitments and the NBPA Top 100 Camp. Player development will be handled by HMBL Development, a Brooklyn training company, and MADE Hoops, the grassroots platform backed by Durant and LRMR, will serve as operations partner. The league is also pledging $1 million to the MADE For All Foundation.

Stein framed the stakes in terms of the NBA itself. There has not been an American-born NBA MVP since 2018, he told ESPN, which he blamed on a lack of professional coaching and structure in youth basketball. The system is "commercializing and monetizing them at every stage without any adherence to athletic or child development principles," Tom Farrey, who runs the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society Program, told ESPN.

The biggest open question is the sneaker companies. Sonny Vaccaro, the former sneaker promoter, told ESPN the issue is always what those companies will do. Stein said he has had productive conversations with them and plans to work with them. Earlier efforts have struggled: Overtime Sports built a paid league for teenagers but required them to give up high school and college eligibility, and the NBA's Jr. NBA league aired for only two years.

The Futures League said more owners, team markets, a full schedule, media partners and sponsors will be announced in the coming weeks. For more on the money moving through the sport, see our Sports Sector and our report on Manchester United's pursuit of Mauricio Pochettino.