Newcastle Eagles will compete in a new format European North Basketball League (ENBL) for the 2025/26 season.

A total of 27 teams, drawn in three pools of nine, will play a round-robin tournament of eight games each – four at home, four away – from September 23, 2025 until February 11, 2026.

The pools draw was officially announced at the annual technical meeting over the weekend in Riga, Latvia – home of the ENBL.


The Eagles punched their ticket to the ENBL Final Four last season. (Photo: Gary Forster)

Newcastle will face familiar faces of Dziki Warsawa from Poland and Bulgaria’s Spartak Pleven again this season, along with six new clubs.

This season sixteen teams will advance to the 2026 ENBL Playoffs, which begins with eight single elimination games played at the higher seed (1-16, 2-15, 3-14, 4-13, 5-12, 6-11, 7-10, 8-9) over two weeks starting from March 4, 2026.

The Quarter Finals will again be played on aggregate in the “best-of-two” home and away series. The pairings for 16 teams making it through will be 1/16 vs 8/9, 2/15 vs 7/10, 3/14 vs 6/11 and 4/13 vs 5/12, with all eight games taking place between March 17 and April 2.


The winners of the Quarter Finals will advance to the Final Four, which is set to be held over April 21 to 23, 2026.

Earlier this year, the Eagles made history in the ENBL Final Four by becoming the first British men’s team to reach a major European competition final, documented in the short film Soaring Into History.

Newcastle beat Dziki Warsawa in the 2025 ENBL Semi-Finals and made history by becoming the first British team to reach a major European competition final. (Photo: Vladimir Dornak / ENBL)

This season Manchester Basketball have joined Newcastle Eagles and Bristol Flyers as three Super League Basketball (SLB) teams competing in the ENBL, with each team drawn into one of the three pools.

In another first for the ENBL, a qualifying tournament will decide which two additional teams will enter pools one and two, with a third team joining the Eagles in pool three still to be announced.


The Croatian Basketball Federation has joined forces with the ENBL to field Croatia Teams One and Two, who will be decided from qualifying over three days, September 17 to 20, where six teams divided in two groups will battle it out for their places in the league.

The full pools are below, minus three teams still to be confirmed:

POOL ONE

  • Donar Groningen, Netherlands
  • Bristol Flyers, United Kingdom
  • CSO Voluntari, Romania
  • Fyllingen Lions, Norway
  • Hefte Helfen Bulls, Austria
  • Syntainics MBC, Germany
  • Valmiera Glass ViA, Latvia
  • TalTech/Alexela, Estonia
  • Croatia Team One

POOL TWO

  • BK Opava, Czechia
  • Brussels Basketball, Belgium
  • Sigal Prishtina, Kosovo
  • Tindastoll, Iceland
  • Gimle Basket, Norway
  • Slovan Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Manchester Basketball, United Kingdom
  • Keila Coolbet, Estonia
  • Croatia Team Two

POOL THREE

  • Riga Zelli, Latvia
  • Iraklis BC, Greece
  • Newcastle Eagles, United Kingdom
  • BC Spartak Pleven, Bulgaria
  • KB Peja, Kosovo
  • BK Olomoucko, Czechia
  • Dziki Warszawa, Poland
  • KK Dubrava, Croatia
  • TBA

The 2025/26 ENBL schedule is set to be announced shortly as the clubs continue to finalise fixtures for alongside their domestic tip-offs in the coming days.