The NBA is considering an ambitious project in Europe that may exclude the EuroLeague, according to Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico.
Sources tell Badenhausen that the NBA has been holding discussions for several years with FIBA and the EuroLeague on how to grow the popularity of the game in the continent, considering the number of NBA stars that hail from Europe. A new plan could create a standalone NBA Europe league that would operate in cooperation with FIBA.
In February, the NBA hired the Raine Group investment bank to explore its opportunities in Europe, Badenhausen states. Both the NBA and Raine refused to comment for Badenhausen’s story, but he says the league is determined to increase its European operations.
A league operated by the NBA and FIBA would be set up similar to the Basketball Africa League, which was launched in 2021. Badenhausen expects the NBA to target strategic investors for the project who already have ties to Europe.
An international competition is also being considered along the lines of FIBA’s Intercontinental Cup, according to Badenhausen, bringing together the top teams in Europe and other parts of the globe. He adds that those talks are still in the preliminary stages.
According to Raine’s projections, the NBA stands to earn up to $3 billion a year by expanding its business in Europe and the Middle East.
This isn’t really about growing the game it’s all about the NBA making $$$. They can’t compete with the EuroLeague and it’s not even like there is only one league level. It’s going to work as well as the G League Ignite which is now irrelevant with NIL in college.
Absolute Facts! Just a non-stop money grab $$$. They keep ignoring how bad the product is right now. They still don’t care that it is the rule changes, designed to produce offense, and to take out physical play to allow players who would be to young and not strong enough to play in the league, be able to compete while still in their teen years. This was all to try and attract “younger” viewers. It has absolutely ruined the product. Head coach really doesn’t matter. He just gets blamed and fired when you lose. No big man took all of the balance out of the game.
When are all focused on watching the best players in the world complete. The Players, Owners and League are only interested in making as much money as possible. It’s just entertainment. One step above Wrestling.
It’s called Greed!
Truth
Ummm Barry, two of the top five players in the league are centers. Jokic and Embiid are both bigger men than Ewing, Olajuwon or Robinson. They’re just more skilled. They can space the floor with their shooting and passing and take it to the post if the situation calls for it.
Modern offenses can’t be stopped all that well because of analytics, it’s more efficient to take threes and drive the hoop then to take mid range jumpers. Almost every play there’s guys cutting, setting screens and relocating. How are you going stop them? Do you want to start allowing the thuggery the Bad Boy Pistons used on Jordan? Allowing hand checks isn’t going to work. To hand check you have to get in somebody’s grill. If you get in Luka’s grill he’s just going to hit the cutter. If you sag off he’s just going to shoot. Get rid of defensive three seconds? It’s barely called anyway unless it’s blatantly obvious so that’s not going to work.
It comes down to this. Modern players are more skilled and modern offenses have evolved. The game has just left fans that are unwilling to adapt like Barry, very far behind.
You new to this ???? It’s a 2way sport. You have to make stops. If you want to win in playoffs. Or if you just want to win. Yes they push offense. Protect the scorer. Yes. But to win, to win as a team. You have to make stops. Team D.
Umm…I didn’t know the NBA was a charity. Do the players play for free?
I bet Europeans will be interested in watching refs win and lose games, the nba product in America is an abysmal joke, bunch of Barbies crying and refs tryin to be the show
Crying Barbies? Are barbies known for crying? Aren’t they inanimate dolls? Lol wut
I like how people who hate the NBA comment on NBA boards.
I tend to ignore the things I hate, but that’s just me
Yeah, I envy anyone with the time to engage in all the things they enjoy, let alone also the things they hate.
I dont think this is a good strategy, Europe already has a very well established league. The nba is better off coming somewhere with a weak league
IDK about this one, Euro League is already established, The G-League is its own thing here in the states as well. I dont think trying to make a whole new league (With separate affiliate teams?) will do much of anything. Maybe something instead would be schedule each team to play 1 game a season in Europe? Maybe have Europe host the in season tournament? Just an idea
Maybe the NBA should think about cutting their losses and fold the WNBA. Then stop fixing games (Lakers 29 FTA; Timberwolves 13 FTA). Start calling traveling, double-dribble and hanging on the rim. Call a foul and a technical foul on every flop. Fine teams for obvious tanking. And cancel that asinine All-Star Game until the players learn to respect it.
Why would they do any of that
Among other reasons because ratings are down and people are getting fed up with the garbage all-star games and lousy refereeing.
If it’s rigged then why does the refereeing matter?
Well your name tracks. The only thing you said that makes sense is folding the WNBA
Actually, the wnba, with the addition of Clark, will finally turn the corner economically. Her popularity has already done wonders for women’s basketball at every level.
Pretty much the same scenario as when Bird and Magic came into the nba and pushed it forward. Clark is pretty much doing that by herself.
More outstanding young ladies to follow.
In fact, there will be a new rule implemented later this year that will allow college women’s basketball “underclassmen” to enter the wnba draft in 2025.
Why do you follow a sport you believe is rigged?
That’s just weird.
Why do people watch pro wrestling? Everyone knows it’s fake. And yet they have a strong following.
Another greed-driven U.S. sports barrel burst in the making, just like the NFL’s pathetic attempts with the former World League, the now defunct NFL Europe.
Well-established European basketball competitions on the national and international level need a third-rate NBA offshoot like a purulent pimple on the rump.
Such league would consist of artificially created franchises without any national identity, history and relegation system – the antithesis of European sports.
Enclosed franchise circus leagues with owners welfare, challenge trophies and rewarding of bad performances won’t fly in a sports environment, driven by fierce competition. Across all sports, in Europe as well as South America, battles against demotion/ for promotion are more intense than the championship decisions, because of their implications for a clubs’ finances and its players’ careers.
The comparison with Africa also couldn’t be any more ignorant since Europe is the cradle and home of a number of the world’s most popular sports, such as football, F1 racing, MotoGP, World Rally Championship racing, WEC (e.g. Le Mans) endurance racing, handball, winter sports etc.. Recently, an indoor handball game at the European championship drew 54,000 fans in Germany. EHF Champions League games have attendances between 10,000 and 16,000.
Europe has the most diverse sports landscape on this planet. There’s simply no need for a purely revenue-driven enclosed sports circus. European football fans’ rebellion against U.S. oligarchs’ plans for a European Super League should be a strong hint.
If European basketball fans want to see top players, they’ll watch European national and international competitions or the NBA, not some scrubs below G League level.
“Europe has the most diverse sports landscape on this planet.”
“Recently, an indoor handball game at the European championship drew 54,000 fans in Germany.”
Surely then there is no appetite for more sports…?
How so? The love for one sport doesn’t imply yearning for another. Your flawed logic failed you again.
Does a sold-out Super Bowl mean that U.S. fans spend a fortune on tickets out of pure boredom and because there’s no other forms of entertainment available?
I know what handball is. All I’m saying is your argument that sports are so diverse in Europe that they couldn’t handle more doesn’t make sense to me. It seems like the opposite, that their love of sports means more opportunity, which is probably how the NBA is looking at it.
Your European Super League analogy is also flawed. People were against having teams taken away from them and introducing exclusion. This is a new league with new teams. It exists separately.
As the NFL Europe and the football Super League plans have shown, European fans reject greed-driven enclosed American circus leagues on their soil. And a “NBA Europe” would be more of that moribund idea.
A sportingly irrelevant European NBA offshoot does nothing to the league’s noble claims of making the game more popular. It’s purely profit-oriented, like all the other failed American attempts to gain a foothold in European sports.
And btw., you clearly had no idea about handball until I told you. You’re not fooling anyone.
Why are you so obsessed with handball lol I lived in Europe for many years I know what it is. I just dont care about it.
It seems like you’re more interested in being right than making a valid point so I’m gonna let you just keep talking nonsense. Why dig the hole when I can hand you the shovel?
Btw., I think you don’t have a remote clue what sport of handball I’m talking about. Look up “European Handball Federation” before embarrassing yourself any further.
There’s not a single way you can equate the NFLs World football league and an NBA sponsored league in Europe. That’s disingenuous
The NFL Europe featured practice squad scrubs and college position coaches turned head coaches, not even mentioning the bastardisation of pro and college rules.
That European NBA circus would consist of scrub-level players as well, since no athlete worth a lick would choose it over meaningful and well-compensated competition at the European national and international level.
This NBA brain fart is driven by the same ignorant attitude towards international sports that doomed the NFL years ago. It assumes that Europeans, living in their mud huts under train oil lights, can’t wait to be fed some American dreck, no matter how awful.
lol
Do all of you understand this is a business. It’s the business of winning. Success comes with winning. NBA should be world-wide. Its the best product out there. Smart move.
The NBA needs to do more to fix it’s feeder series…
This might be a good step for Europe but that is already producing players that are more ready for the NBA than the NCAA…
This could lead to some very interesting exhibition games down the line tho… Very interested in how this shapes out as a result…