New European League could start in 2027

[raylewis]

AAAALLL NBA PLAYERS IN EUROPE WILL RESIDE IN MONACO PAYING Zero TAXES , MAKING SALARY CAP A JOKE

[Mirotic12]

[quote="Bucks4005":****]If there’s a 16 team Euro league, maybe for a playoff you have the top 4 G league teams in a playoff with the top 4 Euro teams. Who knows, maybe expand it later on, top 4 Australian teams and Chinese teams added to the playoff, etc.. I would watch a games like that, there might be some interest in a playoff like that.[/quote:****]

That competition already exists. It's called the FIBA Intercontinental Cup. It's actually taking place right now.

[___Rand___]

As much as I would like to see this work out and be succesful, it is hard for me to see how this league could be profitable, considering basketball still is pretty much a niche sport in much of Europe. Just look at the empty arenas in Eurobasket, not a great look.

This.

For start, biggest money draw in Europe in football is Premiership. Same England ( entire UK) has no interest in basketball whatsoever.

And that is not only big country that has no interest.
Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Croatia,Denmark, Norway are just a few off top of my head among ones that don't really care.

Even in countries like Germany, Italy , basketball isn't that popular, but we talk about huge countries with 60-80 million people, yet championships are often played in rather small, 10 000 arenas, if not smaller, and often aren't sold out.

I have no clue where Silver got idea of nba/basketball popularity being so massive that will attract enough money, investors, arenas and billions to make such league functional. NBA is declining product even in US.

That massive Eurobasket finals viewership only happened because Turkey played in finals vs Germany, that's pool of near 200 million people on it's own. And because it's national teams event every few years or so.

Just to compare some numbers, in Germany, 5,7 million people watched finals of Eurobasket. That's around 6,7% of population.
Last year, friendly game vs Bayern Munich vs Rottach via Bayern digial Tv was viewed by 1,8 million people


Champions league finals often reach 500 million people.

And when you line up salaries of nba teams ,vs some biggest football teams, it's not that big difference.

I don't think NBA and its billionaire owners are willing to commit hundreds of millions to this venture without some credible fan interest studies behind it. They probably have NBA viewership numbers in Europe by location, and also likely have done fan interest studies before making a serious pursuit of this new league. If they are willing to put a basketball team in UK they found some small pockets that have basketball interest there. This league is no longer at the idea stage. They are implementing it.

[___Rand___]

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/46285038/nba-silver-says-new-european-league-start-27-28

A new basketball league based in Europe that the NBA and FIBA are working together to launch could begin play in 2027 or '28, though no timeline has been finalized, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday.

Early plans call for the new league to have 16 teams, though that number could change. Existing European clubs like Real Madrid, Fenerbahce Istanbul and Barcelona are likely to figure into the NBA's plans for the new league, along with other top soccer brands like Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.

hmmm this would be interesting. How are they going to incorporate the existing teams into the new league without hurting the domestic leagues?

Oh I think they fully expect to hurt domestic leagues in this process.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah they will have to have some compensation built in. This is very interesting what they're doing there.

[___Rand___]

From all the points given so far, I am thinking that this league will have NBA style rule so that the game will be different from how its played in the rest of Europe. It'll be more NBA style, preferring to highlight athleticism and individual skills vs team play. It will be "high-light oriented game" as Silver put it.

[Greek]

I consider this move as a nonsense. They just "leaking " rumours to measure responses. Sports in Europe doesn't work as in the USA, for some people their teams is a reason to kill literally and we have plenty examples to support my claim unfortunately. They have better chance to expand in China and Asia in general than in Europe.

Sent from my SM-G996B using RealGM mobile app

[sisibilio]

If NBA Europe happens, it will be with NBA rules, otherwise it would be called Fiba Europe, but just under the allowance of Fiba. Fiba just allows their teams to compete, gets a share of the money, everyhing else is NBA. You can't call something NBA and then play with completely different rules than the other NBA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_Africa_League

[sisibilio]

How many Euroleague teams are even profitable?

None. Gran Canaria or Unicaja Malaga actually refused to play because it was a bottomless pit

[pepe1991]

As much as I would like to see this work out and be succesful, it is hard for me to see how this league could be profitable, considering basketball still is pretty much a niche sport in much of Europe. Just look at the empty arenas in Eurobasket, not a great look.

This.

For start, biggest money draw in Europe in football is Premiership. Same England ( entire UK) has no interest in basketball whatsoever.

And that is not only big country that has no interest.
Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Croatia,Denmark, Norway are just a few off top of my head among ones that don't really care.

Even in countries like Germany, Italy , basketball isn't that popular, but we talk about huge countries with 60-80 million people, yet championships are often played in rather small, 10 000 arenas, if not smaller, and often aren't sold out.

I have no clue where Silver got idea of nba/basketball popularity being so massive that will attract enough money, investors, arenas and billions to make such league functional. NBA is declining product even in US.

That massive Eurobasket finals viewership only happened because Turkey played in finals vs Germany, that's pool of near 200 million people on it's own. And because it's national teams event every few years or so.

Just to compare some numbers, in Germany, 5,7 million people watched finals of Eurobasket. That's around 6,7% of population.
Last year, friendly game vs Bayern Munich vs Rottach via Bayern digial Tv was viewed by 1,8 million people


Champions league finals often reach 500 million people.

And when you line up salaries of nba teams ,vs some biggest football teams, it's not that big difference.

I don't think NBA and its billionaire owners are willing to commit hundreds of millions to this venture without some credible fan interest studies behind it. They probably have NBA viewership numbers in Europe by location, and also likely have done fan interest studies before making a serious pursuit of this new league. If they are willing to put a basketball team in UK they found some small pockets that have basketball interest there. This league is no longer at the idea stage. They are implementing it.

During last stage of qualifications for Eurobasket, Great Britain played in Vertu Motors arena in Newcastle. It is 2800 seats arena. Total number of viewers for game: 2180.

How about London game vs Greece? For sure that will be big draw? It is rather small 7500 seats arena in London, town of near 10 million people...
4800 people went to watch it.

Earlier stage of qualifications, against very damn good team like Serbia, hardly drew 2000 people in same Newcastle arena.

Is their domestic league better? For start i couldn't even find who is champion. After being forced to use chat GPT, it's London Lions. Very same London LIons who had no money for workers to pay two years ago.


There is no credible interest in such league in Europe. Period. Fan-atics of basketball : Greece, Turkey, Serbia, is not type of basketball brand NBA wants. And they are core & heart of basketball in Euroleague and Europe in general. You watch some Germany team in Euroleague vs Zvezda ( Serbia) and damn entire arena is filled with crazy serbian fans with no German in sight.

One of biggest rivaly in Europe in basketball is Serbian duel of Partizan vs Red Star ( Crvena Zvezda). Game startrs 8 hours before game, when fans clash and throw bottles & stones at each other. Than in arena you have group of like 500 police officers to prevent fights. And yet every game something happens. Often road team fans aren't even allowed in arena, or are escored by police in and out.

Hooligan culture is massive thing in Europe. And part of lure for lot of fans.


Second, current teams budgets are laughable in contrast of nba.
Real Madrid spends around €45 M on budget. Half of a budget goes to salaries. And that is team with biggest buget.
Barcelona budget is €32M, and Silver's master plan is to have them among 16 teams? With what money?

I was in Palau Blaugrana ( Barcelona basketball arena) . Size of that arena is miniature for "nba league game". It's sub 8000 seats arena. Literally, Zagreb/ Croatia biggest arena is x2 of that size and building of such arena was massive loss for main reason of basketball never drawing any interest to make such arena profitable.
So, among "16 nba Europe teams", almost non of them has proper arena nor enough seats.


And last, Europe fans are sport purists. They won't watch league or that has 5000 commercial breaks. That's why NFL never turned into a thing in Europe. To me it's unwatchable. All my friends find NBA unwatchable for that reason.

This idea of basketball popularity in Europe is one of biggest Silver said. He is either dummy or just lies to get project started. He called basketball "fastest growing sport in the world". In mean time, 3 weeks ago, his biggest star and best player in the world, NIkola Jokić, in Riga, Latvia, place where basketball is THE SPORT, is playing in front of 2900 people ( Xiaomi Arena capacity is around 10 200). So... where is interest?

Simple answer is: there is non. It will be like MLS in USA. They will plant some declining superstars that no longer care about sport or only want to make money & live in Europe and be defacto retired, whole thing will never become A Thing. Rather just another failed product that won't go away due how much money is invested, but also won't ever become popular or grow.

I just saw Apple Tv MLS viewership and all i have to say is
Those are some snail race- championship numbers

In conclusion, yes, NBA probably has some inflated "Europe nba fans data" because they need expansion as product is declining in USA & Canada and they want more and more money to cover costs of expanding salary cap & greedy players who want more and more. But Europe itself simply has too many countries that neither has any interest in NBA nor basketball whatsoever. And they want teams like Man City. In other words they will take that Arab money because they are desperate. In same fashion they took that gambling & casinos money, at cost of killing sport's integrity.

Expect many more Ballmer- type owners- behind dask trades, Luka Dončić for bag of chips & top 59 protected picks comming, as oil owner lands it's basketball team.

[LuDux1]

If NBA Europe happens, it will be with NBA rules, otherwise it would be called Fiba Europe, but just under the allowance of Fiba. Fiba just allows their teams to compete, gets a share of the money, everyhing else is NBA. You can't call something NBA and then play with completely different rules than the other NBA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball_Africa_League

Your link is lying. It doesn't mention how Silver commandoes force fans to sit quietly, eat American fast food and watch 2 hours of commercials instead of chanting "death to people in neighboring country" like real purist basketball fans

[LuDux1]

How many Euroleague teams are even profitable?

None. Gran Canaria or Unicaja Malaga actually refused to play because it was a bottomless pit

Gran Canaria participates in ULEB Cup, which I guess is more profitable

[Mirotic12]

I don't think NBA and its billionaire owners are willing to commit hundreds of millions to this venture without some credible fan interest studies behind it. They probably have NBA viewership numbers in Europe by location, and also likely have done fan interest studies before making a serious pursuit of this new league. If they are willing to put a basketball team in UK they found some small pockets that have basketball interest there. This league is no longer at the idea stage. They are implementing it.

Not really. They are specifically targeting some of the areas in Europe where basketball is by far the least popular.

[Mirotic12]

During last stage of qualifications for Eurobasket, Great Britain played in Vertu Motors arena in Newcastle. It is 2800 seats arena. Total number of viewers for game: 2180.

How about London game vs Greece? For sure that will be big draw? It is rather small 7500 seats arena in London, town of near 10 million people...
4800 people went to watch it.

Earlier stage of qualifications, against very damn good team like Serbia, hardly drew 2000 people in same Newcastle arena.

Is their domestic league better? For start i couldn't even find who is champion. After being forced to use chat GPT, it's London Lions. Very same London LIons who had no money for workers to pay two years ago.


There is no credible interest in such league in Europe. Period. Fan-atics of basketball : Greece, Turkey, Serbia, is not type of basketball brand NBA wants. And they are core & heart of basketball in Euroleague and Europe in general. You watch some Germany team in Euroleague vs Zvezda ( Serbia) and damn entire arena is filled with crazy serbian fans with no German in sight.

One of biggest rivaly in Europe in basketball is Serbian duel of Partizan vs Red Star ( Crvena Zvezda). Game startrs 8 hours before game, when fans clash and throw bottles & stones at each other. Than in arena you have group of like 500 police officers to prevent fights. And yet every game something happens. Often road team fans aren't even allowed in arena, or are escored by police in and out.

Hooligan culture is massive thing in Europe. And part of lure for lot of fans.


Second, current teams budgets are laughable in contrast of nba.
Real Madrid spends around €45 M on budget. Half of a budget goes to salaries. And that is team with biggest buget.
Barcelona budget is €32M, and Silver's master plan is to have them among 16 teams? With what money?

I was in Palau Blaugrana ( Barcelona basketball arena) . Size of that arena is miniature for "nba league game". It's sub 8000 seats arena. Literally, Zagreb/ Croatia biggest arena is x2 of that size and building of such arena was massive loss for main reason of basketball never drawing any interest to make such arena profitable.
So, among "16 nba Europe teams", almost non of them has proper arena nor enough seats.


And last, Europe fans are sport purists. They won't watch league or that has 5000 commercial breaks. That's why NFL never turned into a thing in Europe. To me it's unwatchable. All my friends find NBA unwatchable for that reason.

This idea of basketball popularity in Europe is one of biggest Silver said. He is either dummy or just lies to get project started. He called basketball "fastest growing sport in the world". In mean time, 3 weeks ago, his biggest star and best player in the world, NIkola Jokić, in Riga, Latvia, place where basketball is THE SPORT, is playing in front of 2900 people ( Xiaomi Arena capacity is around 10 200). So... where is interest?

Simple answer is: there is non. It will be like MLS in USA. They will plant some declining superstars that no longer care about sport or only want to make money & live in Europe and be defacto retired, whole thing will never become A Thing. Rather just another failed product that won't go away due how much money is invested, but also won't ever become popular or grow.

I just saw Apple Tv MLS viewership and all i have to say is
Those are some snail race- championship numbers

In conclusion, yes, NBA probably has some inflated "Europe nba fans data" because they need expansion as product is declining in USA & Canada and they want more and more money to cover costs of expanding salary cap & greedy players who want more and more. But Europe itself simply has too many countries that neither has any interest in NBA nor basketball whatsoever. And they want teams like Man City. In other words they will take that Arab money because they are desperate. In same fashion they took that gambling & casinos money, at cost of killing sport's integrity.

Expect many more Ballmer- type owners- behind dask trades, Luka Dončić for bag of chips & top 59 protected picks comming, as oil owner lands it's basketball team.

London has a 20.000+ seat arena that can be used for basketball games. NBA teams have played at that arena before. The London Lions are also building a new 10.000 seat arena, which is specifically just for their use.

Barcelona has an 18.000 seat arena that they can use for basketball games, and it has been used as their home arena in the past. NBA teams have also played games at that arena before.

In addition to that, Barcelona is building a new 15.000 seat arena, and they recently said they can make it 18.000, or even 20.000, if needed, if EuroLeague joins with the NBA and wants a bigger arena.

So, the arenas are actually not an issue at all. There are plenty of big and new basketball arenas all over Europe.

The problem with this NBA Europe League, as it is being proposed here, has nothing to do with arenas. It's the fact that the NBA would be trying to compete directly with the most popular EuroLeague clubs, with fake new NBA franchises, that are based on football fans, and located in areas that don't care about basektball.

The arenas are not an issue, but the very obvious idiocy of whomever is making these NBA Europe League plans for the NBA certainly is.

[Mirotic12]

How many Euroleague teams are even profitable?

None. Gran Canaria or Unicaja Malaga actually refused to play because it was a bottomless pit

Gran Canaria participates in ULEB Cup, which I guess is more profitable

Gran Canaria moved to FIBA BCL for this upcoming season.

It's just EuroCup now. ULEB separated from EuroLeague in 2014. And in 2016, ULEB officially stopped recognizing EuroLeague's two competitions (EuroLeague and EuroCup), and they merged with FIBA.

ULEB merged with FIBA and formed the new governing body for the national domestic leagues, which is called the Basketball Champions League SA, which is made up of half FIBA control and half ULEB national leagues control.

So actually, FIBA BCL is the ULEB competition now, and not the EuroCup.

[LuDux1]

None. Gran Canaria or Unicaja Malaga actually refused to play because it was a bottomless pit

Gran Canaria participates in ULEB Cup, which I guess is more profitable

Gran Canaria moved to FIBA BCL for this upcoming season.

It's just EuroCup now. ULEB separated from EuroLeague in 2014. And in 2016, ULEB officially stopped recognizing EuroLeague's two competitions (EuroLeague and EuroCup), and they merged with FIBA.

ULEB merged with FIBA and formed the new governing body for the national domestic leagues, which is called the Basketball Champions League SA, which is made up of half FIBA control and half ULEB national leagues control.

So actually, FIBA BCL is the ULEB competition now, and not the EuroCup.

Same thing
https://www.euroleaguebasketball.net/en/eurocup/standings/?season=2002-03&type=Traditional&phase=REGULAR%20SEASON

[___Rand___]

During last stage of qualifications for Eurobasket, Great Britain played in Vertu Motors arena in Newcastle. It is 2800 seats arena. Total number of viewers for game: 2180.

How about London game vs Greece? For sure that will be big draw? It is rather small 7500 seats arena in London, town of near 10 million people...
4800 people went to watch it.

Earlier stage of qualifications, against very damn good team like Serbia, hardly drew 2000 people in same Newcastle arena.

Is their domestic league better? For start i couldn't even find who is champion. After being forced to use chat GPT, it's London Lions. Very same London LIons who had no money for workers to pay two years ago.


There is no credible interest in such league in Europe. Period. Fan-atics of basketball : Greece, Turkey, Serbia, is not type of basketball brand NBA wants. And they are core & heart of basketball in Euroleague and Europe in general. You watch some Germany team in Euroleague vs Zvezda ( Serbia) and damn entire arena is filled with crazy serbian fans with no German in sight.

One of biggest rivaly in Europe in basketball is Serbian duel of Partizan vs Red Star ( Crvena Zvezda). Game startrs 8 hours before game, when fans clash and throw bottles & stones at each other. Than in arena you have group of like 500 police officers to prevent fights. And yet every game something happens. Often road team fans aren't even allowed in arena, or are escored by police in and out.

Hooligan culture is massive thing in Europe. And part of lure for lot of fans.


Second, current teams budgets are laughable in contrast of nba.
Real Madrid spends around €45 M on budget. Half of a budget goes to salaries. And that is team with biggest buget.
Barcelona budget is €32M, and Silver's master plan is to have them among 16 teams? With what money?

I was in Palau Blaugrana ( Barcelona basketball arena) . Size of that arena is miniature for "nba league game". It's sub 8000 seats arena. Literally, Zagreb/ Croatia biggest arena is x2 of that size and building of such arena was massive loss for main reason of basketball never drawing any interest to make such arena profitable.
So, among "16 nba Europe teams", almost non of them has proper arena nor enough seats.


And last, Europe fans are sport purists. They won't watch league or that has 5000 commercial breaks. That's why NFL never turned into a thing in Europe. To me it's unwatchable. All my friends find NBA unwatchable for that reason.

This idea of basketball popularity in Europe is one of biggest Silver said. He is either dummy or just lies to get project started. He called basketball "fastest growing sport in the world". In mean time, 3 weeks ago, his biggest star and best player in the world, NIkola Jokić, in Riga, Latvia, place where basketball is THE SPORT, is playing in front of 2900 people ( Xiaomi Arena capacity is around 10 200). So... where is interest?

Simple answer is: there is non. It will be like MLS in USA. They will plant some declining superstars that no longer care about sport or only want to make money & live in Europe and be defacto retired, whole thing will never become A Thing. Rather just another failed product that won't go away due how much money is invested, but also won't ever become popular or grow.

I just saw Apple Tv MLS viewership and all i have to say is
Those are some snail race- championship numbers

In conclusion, yes, NBA probably has some inflated "Europe nba fans data" because they need expansion as product is declining in USA & Canada and they want more and more money to cover costs of expanding salary cap & greedy players who want more and more. But Europe itself simply has too many countries that neither has any interest in NBA nor basketball whatsoever. And they want teams like Man City. In other words they will take that Arab money because they are desperate. In same fashion they took that gambling & casinos money, at cost of killing sport's integrity.

Expect many more Ballmer- type owners- behind dask trades, Luka Dončić for bag of chips & top 59 protected picks comming, as oil owner lands it's basketball team.

London has a 20.000+ seat arena that can be used for basketball games. NBA teams have played at that arena before. The London Lions are also building a new 10.000 seat arena, which is specifically just for their use.

Barcelona has an 18.000 seat arena that they can use for basketball games, and it has been used as their home arena in the past. NBA teams have also played games at that arena before.

In addition to that, Barcelona is building a new 15.000 seat arena, and they recently said they can make it 18.000, or even 20.000, if needed, if EuroLeague joins with the NBA and wants a bigger arena.

So, the arenas are actually not an issue at all. There are plenty of big and new basketball arenas all over Europe.

The problem with this NBA Europe League, as it is being proposed here, has nothing to do with arenas. It's the fact that the NBA would be trying to compete directly with the most popular EuroLeague clubs, with fake new NBA franchises, that are based on football fans, and located in areas that don't care about basketball.

The arenas are not an issue, but the very obvious idiocy of whomever is making these NBA Europe League plans for the NBA certainly is.

You both make excellent points about fan interest. Some of these places never had a good product. For example football (not soccer) in Toronto. For a huge city attendance was always a problem. But if you put an NFL team in Toronto it will sell out. CFL is not the same kind of product that NFL is. Look at NHL expansion in the US. League put teams in warm weather cities where ice hockey isn't a traditional sport. With the exception of Phoenix, they are doing well enough in other "warm" locations in that country. So a quality product as well as marketing matters in these things I believe. They will have to spend money on building good teams and draw good talent there.

But you both make very valid points. It will be interesting to see what their marketing plan and business plans are. It can't be a flash in the pan "we'll do this for 3 years and pull the plug if it doesn't break even". Look at WNBA - it still isn't making money but they are in it for the long haul. They will need patient investors.

[Mephariel]

Not a fan of this. Its not needed. Who tf benefits from europe clubs playing under a nba banner? Not the fans thats for sure. And whats the nba's angle here? Ticket prices in europe are much lower than the nba and people wont pay 100-150$ per ticket

"Not needed" isn't really an argument though. The NBA is a business. It is about opportunity not necessity.

[Mephariel]

This.

For start, biggest money draw in Europe in football is Premiership. Same England ( entire UK) has no interest in basketball whatsoever.

And that is not only big country that has no interest.
Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Croatia,Denmark, Norway are just a few off top of my head among ones that don't really care.

Even in countries like Germany, Italy , basketball isn't that popular, but we talk about huge countries with 60-80 million people, yet championships are often played in rather small, 10 000 arenas, if not smaller, and often aren't sold out.

I have no clue where Silver got idea of nba/basketball popularity being so massive that will attract enough money, investors, arenas and billions to make such league functional. NBA is declining product even in US.

That massive Eurobasket finals viewership only happened because Turkey played in finals vs Germany, that's pool of near 200 million people on it's own. And because it's national teams event every few years or so.

Just to compare some numbers, in Germany, 5,7 million people watched finals of Eurobasket. That's around 6,7% of population.
Last year, friendly game vs Bayern Munich vs Rottach via Bayern digial Tv was viewed by 1,8 million people


Champions league finals often reach 500 million people.

And when you line up salaries of nba teams ,vs some biggest football teams, it's not that big difference.

I don't think NBA and its billionaire owners are willing to commit hundreds of millions to this venture without some credible fan interest studies behind it. They probably have NBA viewership numbers in Europe by location, and also likely have done fan interest studies before making a serious pursuit of this new league. If they are willing to put a basketball team in UK they found some small pockets that have basketball interest there. This league is no longer at the idea stage. They are implementing it.

During last stage of qualifications for Eurobasket, Great Britain played in Vertu Motors arena in Newcastle. It is 2800 seats arena. Total number of viewers for game: 2180.

How about London game vs Greece? For sure that will be big draw? It is rather small 7500 seats arena in London, town of near 10 million people...
4800 people went to watch it.

Earlier stage of qualifications, against very damn good team like Serbia, hardly drew 2000 people in same Newcastle arena.

Is their domestic league better? For start i couldn't even find who is champion. After being forced to use chat GPT, it's London Lions. Very same London LIons who had no money for workers to pay two years ago.


There is no credible interest in such league in Europe. Period. Fan-atics of basketball : Greece, Turkey, Serbia, is not type of basketball brand NBA wants. And they are core & heart of basketball in Euroleague and Europe in general. You watch some Germany team in Euroleague vs Zvezda ( Serbia) and damn entire arena is filled with crazy serbian fans with no German in sight.

One of biggest rivaly in Europe in basketball is Serbian duel of Partizan vs Red Star ( Crvena Zvezda). Game startrs 8 hours before game, when fans clash and throw bottles & stones at each other. Than in arena you have group of like 500 police officers to prevent fights. And yet every game something happens. Often road team fans aren't even allowed in arena, or are escored by police in and out.

Hooligan culture is massive thing in Europe. And part of lure for lot of fans.


Second, current teams budgets are laughable in contrast of nba.
Real Madrid spends around €45 M on budget. Half of a budget goes to salaries. And that is team with biggest buget.
Barcelona budget is €32M, and Silver's master plan is to have them among 16 teams? With what money?

I was in Palau Blaugrana ( Barcelona basketball arena) . Size of that arena is miniature for "nba league game". It's sub 8000 seats arena. Literally, Zagreb/ Croatia biggest arena is x2 of that size and building of such arena was massive loss for main reason of basketball never drawing any interest to make such arena profitable.
So, among "16 nba Europe teams", almost non of them has proper arena nor enough seats.


And last, Europe fans are sport purists. They won't watch league or that has 5000 commercial breaks. That's why NFL never turned into a thing in Europe. To me it's unwatchable. All my friends find NBA unwatchable for that reason.

This idea of basketball popularity in Europe is one of biggest Silver said. He is either dummy or just lies to get project started. He called basketball "fastest growing sport in the world". In mean time, 3 weeks ago, his biggest star and best player in the world, NIkola Jokić, in Riga, Latvia, place where basketball is THE SPORT, is playing in front of 2900 people ( Xiaomi Arena capacity is around 10 200). So... where is interest?

Simple answer is: there is non. It will be like MLS in USA. They will plant some declining superstars that no longer care about sport or only want to make money & live in Europe and be defacto retired, whole thing will never become A Thing. Rather just another failed product that won't go away due how much money is invested, but also won't ever become popular or grow.

I just saw Apple Tv MLS viewership and all i have to say is
Those are some snail race- championship numbers

In conclusion, yes, NBA probably has some inflated "Europe nba fans data" because they need expansion as product is declining in USA & Canada and they want more and more money to cover costs of expanding salary cap & greedy players who want more and more. But Europe itself simply has too many countries that neither has any interest in NBA nor basketball whatsoever. And they want teams like Man City. In other words they will take that Arab money because they are desperate. In same fashion they took that gambling & casinos money, at cost of killing sport's integrity.

Expect many more Ballmer- type owners- behind dask trades, Luka Dončić for bag of chips & top 59 protected picks comming, as oil owner lands it's basketball team.

You keep saying the product is declining in USA and Canada, and yet attendance is at a all time high. Team valuations are at a all time high. The league generated 12+ billion dollars in revenue, second to the NFL and neck and neck with MLB. They just signed the largest TV deal ever.

Like are you just saying this just to say it?

[LuDux1]

Not a fan of this. Its not needed. Who tf benefits from europe clubs playing under a nba banner? Not the fans thats for sure. And whats the nba's angle here? Ticket prices in europe are much lower than the nba and people wont pay 100-150$ per ticket

"Not needed" isn't really an argument though. The NBA is a business. It is about opportunity not necessity.

And Euroleague isn't?


Euroleague Basketball (EB) is a global leader in the sports and entertainment business, devoted to running the top European competitions of professional ...
https://www.euroleaguebasketball.net/about

[___Rand___]

Not a fan of this. Its not needed. Who tf benefits from europe clubs playing under a nba banner? Not the fans thats for sure. And whats the nba's angle here? Ticket prices in europe are much lower than the nba and people wont pay 100-150$ per ticket

"Not needed" isn't really an argument though. The NBA is a business. It is about opportunity not necessity.

And Euroleague isn't?


Euroleague Basketball (EB) is a global leader in the sports and entertainment business, devoted to running the top European competitions of professional ...
https://www.euroleaguebasketball.net/about

Euroleague is a major sports league. It's revenues are just shy of $3billion for 2024. NBA and FIBA league would be competition and I don't know how they are going to work this out, but I ASSUME that since they've already made official announcements, that they've made agreements with Euroleague.