The Lewis family, who own Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, are exploring a bid for the NBA Europe team in London.
It would represent a foray into other sports for the family, who have owned Spurs since Joe Lewis acquired a controlling stake in 2001. The Lewis family own 70.12 per cent of ENIC, Tottenham’s parent company, which in turn owns 87.62 per cent of the club. They are primarily represented by Vivienne Lewis, Joe Lewis’s daughter, and Nick Beucher, Vivienne’s son-in-law and co-chief executive officer of Tavistock Group.
Joe Lewis ceased to be a person of “significant control” at Tottenham in October 2022. In 2024, he pled guilty to insider trading and was fined $5million by a New York judge, before being given a presidential pardon by President Donald Trump the following year.
The Lewises are part of a consortium alongside two other families with experience in sports investment. One of these is the Checketts family, who have previously owned MLS team Real Salt Lake and the NHL’s St. Louis Blues. David Checketts, a businessman and executive from Salt Lake City, Utah previously served as general manager of the Utah Jazz and president of the New York Knicks in the NBA.
Also part of the proposed bid is the Eccles family, who, like the Checketts family, are investors in English second-tier team Burnley and Spanish club Espanyol, and also invested in venues, facilities and events for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and the upcoming 2034 games in Utah.
NBA Europe, organised by the NBA and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), is a proposed basketball league made up of European franchises that is slated to begin in 2027. It is set to be made up of 12 permanent teams, plus four sides that qualify on an annual basis.
London has been earmarked as one of the league’s 12 target cities, alongside Manchester, Paris, Lyon, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, Athens, Istanbul, Rome and Milan.
The Athletic reported that American technology billionaire Nikesh Arora, leader of consortium that purchased English cricket’s most lucrative franchise in the Hundred competition, has assembled a consortium of investors prepared to offer more than $1billion (£740million) for the London team.
Battersea Power Station’s undeveloped estate has also been touted as a potential arena for the franchise.
Under the Lewis family, Tottenham have regularly recorded finishes in the top half and top six of the Premier League, qualifying for the Champions League through their league position on six occasions and finishing as high as second in 2017. However, silverware has been hard to come by, with just two trophies during ENIC’s tenure: the 2007-08 League Cup and the 2024-25 Europa League.
Nick Beucher (left) alongside Vivienne Lewis and club CEO Vinai Venkatesham (Ian Kington / AFP via Getty Images)
The team finished 17th last season for the second year in a row, narrowly avoiding relegation, prompting the family to issue a rare statement.
“The problems we found were deeper than we realised and were allowed to build over the last few years,” the family said at the end of the season.
“We know that has eroded trust and we have to win that back. As owners, we take ultimate responsibility for the situation in which the club finds itself.”
