(Bloomberg) — An investor group advised by Maverick Carter, business partner of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, says it is seeking to raise $5 billion from private capital sources to create an international basketball league to compete with the National Basketball Association can people who are familiar with the matter.

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UBS Group AG and Evercore Inc. were enlisted to help raise the money, which may come from high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is private.

Other backers include Skype co-founder Geoff Prentice, former Facebook executive Grady Burnett and investment firm SC Holdings, led by co-founders Jason Stein and Daniel Haimovic.

Representatives for Carter, UBS, SC Holdings, Prentice and Burnett declined to comment. Evercore did not respond to a request for comment.

The league will consist of six men’s and six women’s teams, with games to be played in eight cities around the world and each city to take place over two weeks, the people said. The global rotation follows a similar schedule to Formula 1 racing, and Singapore is one of the markets hosting the games.

The supporters of the new basketball league face major challenges. Other startups, such as those seeking to compete with the NFL, as well as domestic basketball leagues in Europe and Asia, have struggled to compete with the largest and most well-known leagues.

The move comes after the NBA returned to China after a multi-year absence, reviving interest in the game in the world’s second-largest economy. Because of this high popularity, it will be difficult for any fledgling league to compete for airtime.

Since getting into trouble with the Chinese government in 2019, the NBA has been pushing its international expansion elsewhere. Since 2020, regular season games have been played in Paris, while the Celtics played preseason games in Abu Dhabi in October as part of the NBA’s third annual trip to the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

According to Bloomberg News, the NBA is considering opening a regional office in the Middle East, one of the few territories where it does not have a local presence.

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