LeBron's partners are helping to raise $5 billion to build a league to compete with the NBA

Maverick Carter, the business partner of Lakers star LeBron James, is helping a group of investors raise $5 billion to create an international basketball league to compete with the NBA, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Maverick Carter is a sports marketer, media personality and business manager for LeBron James. He and LeBron are both from Akron, Ohio, and their relationship can be traced back to high school. After dropping out of college, Carter became a field representative for Nike and has been working closely with LeBron since 2006.

In the media field, Carter co-founded The SpringHill Company with LeBron, a partner of Warner Bros. He is also the host of HBO's "The Shop" series of talk shows and has more than 100,000 subscribers on YouTube.

According to ESPN reporter Shams Charania, LeBron James is not involved in the project. Carter was appointed as an advisor to the investment team, which will raise funds through UBS and Evercore. Bloomberg further stated that the sources of funds may include institutional investors such as private equity funds and sovereign wealth funds.

Bloomberg goes on to add that the league’s major backers include Skype co-founder Jeff Prentice, former Facebook executive Grady Burnett, and SC Holdings co-founders Jason Stein and Daniel Haimovich.

The league is envisioned to consist of six men's teams and six women's teams. The competition will be held in eight cities around the world in rotation, staying in each city for two weeks, and the schedule will be based on the F1 model. Singapore is listed as one of the cities that may host the competition. However, similar projects that have historically attempted to compete with the NBA have never been successful, and the new league is expected to face the same resistance.