LeBron-Durant-backed Futures League, featuring top U18 players, to launch in April

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  Ben StraussNov 10, 2026, 11:06 AM ET

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  Ben Strauss is a senior reporter focused on sports business.

A new league backed by investments from LeBron James and Kevin Durant is aiming to reshape top-level youth basketball.

The Futures League announced plans Tuesday to launch in April 2027, targeting the top 120 under-18 players in the country with hopes to replace a patchwork of summer league tournaments and travel leagues, many run by shoe companies.

"The top 150 basketball players under 18 under in the country play on over 200 different teams in seven different leagues in the spring and summer season," said Jason Stein, the league's chairman and co-founder. "And it's not fair they don't get fair value for their NIL and they don't get professional coaching structure - so this needs to exist."

Stein said players will be paid through NIL deals and maintain their eligibility for college and high school. The start-up hopes to combine the television appeal of the Little League World Series, the in-person excitement once enjoyed by the And1 Live Tour and the emphasis on player development of European youth sports academies.

Combined, Stein said, the Futures League is attempting to build something that is both commercially successful and helps the much-maligned youth basketball development pipeline in the United States. Currently, travel league circuits sponsored by different shoe companies don't play each other, meaning the best players aren't always competing against each other. Many of those players don't receive NIL deals for their participation. Then there are the concerns about too many games and travel leagues that emphasize individual performance over team-building skills.

"It's something that I wish that I would have had when I was playing when I was a youngster," said former NBA star Derrick Rose, an investor in the league who will also run its Chicago team.

The league plans to launch a season next year that runs from April through August, culminating in a championship. It will begin with 12 teams, each representing a geographic region. Teams will recruit players within that territory, but players will be contracted and paid by the league. The league said the price to buy into a team has been $6 million, and investors also get equity in the league. Stein intends to sell sponsorships and secure a media rights deal to broadcast games.

Investors include LRMR, a fund started by James and his business partner Maverick Carter; Boardroom Sports Holdings, a fund launched by Durant and his business partner Rich Kleinman; and team owners Paolo Banchero (a forward on the Orlando Magic), Rose and investor Gary Vaynerchuk.

The league declined to say how much it would pay players for NIL deals; Rose said the amounts could be "life-changing." The league will also help facilitate NIL deals for players with additional sponsors. Players can choose to receive their pay in cash, league equity or a combination of both, according to a statement from the league Tuesday.

Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society Program, said today's youth basketball system isn't adequately developing players.

"It's commercializing and monetizing them at every stage without any adherence to athletic or child development principles," he said.

Stein said those effects are felt in the NBA today: "There's a lack of professional coaching and structure [in youth basketball], and there hasn't been an American-born MVP in the NBA since 2018. Can you imagine if the Ballon d'Or had gone to an American soccer-born soccer player for the last eight years? There would be riots in the streets of Europe."

Rose told ESPN he is currently meeting with representatives from Northern Trust to build out a financial literacy program for his team, another draw of the league that will help prepare players for a professional career. Rose said he'll soon begin recruiting.

"Voltaire said you judge a man by his questions," he said of his recruiting pitch. "I'm just gonna ask some simple questions about what they did prior to me actually coming to them and what I could do to help them going forward. I want them to just understand the business of basketball, because now it's really a business, so it's me opening myself up to them."

One question for the Futures League is how it will recruit players away from the current summer league circuits, while also not alienating the major shoe companies.

"It's great they want to pay the kids, but the question is always what the sneaker companies are going to do," said Sonny Vaccaro, the former sneaker promoter and amateurism critic, who ran a successful high school basketball camp for decades.

Stein said he's had productive conversations with those companies and plans to work with them.

This is not the first attempt to monetize or improve youth basketball development, but there have been fits and starts that speak to the opportunity and the challenge. Overtime Sports created a paid league for top teenagers, but required them to forfeit high school and college eligibility. The NBA launched a Jr. NBA league that secured a broadcast rights deal in the mold of the Little League World Series but aired for only two years.

The NBA also was touting as recently as last year a program called Court of Leaders, which sought to mentor top young players about professionalism and leadership before they got to the league but since scrapped it and laid off multiple members of its youth basketball development division, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. (A league spokesman said: "The NBA is committed to expanding access to youth basketball and supporting the next generation of elite players in the U.S. and around the world.")

Stein co-founded SC, a holding company with investments across sports and entertainment, including a major stake in the United Pickleball Association that has grown substantially, he said.

"We've outgrown the old system," Stein said. "First college [got NIL] and now it's inevitable that the next level of talent, guys who have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, and they're doing brand deals, and they're a year away from a $5 million contract from Duke. It can't be zero-to-that anymore."