There are euros to be made.
More than two decades ago, the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association David Stern was pitching an idea that the league was interested in placing teams in various cities in Europe but Europe just did not have the kind of North American style arenas that would generate massive amounts of revenue. Stern’s plan never had any legs and Europe would only see an NBA game in the pre-season or one game during the regular season. Two decades later, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and his staff apparently are revisiting Stern’s old plan and looking to establish something in Europe. There are basketball leagues throughout Europe so Silver has to approach the notion gently, yes we want an NBA presence in Europe but there are some really popular teams in Europe that we don’t want to upset.
“We certainly haven’t made any definitive decisions,” Silver said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I continue to believe there’s enormous opportunity here. It’s not something where we’ll transform a league structure in the short term. But I think that there’s an appetite among our team owners for additional investment in global basketball. We have a huge initiative in China. We have a huge initiative in Africa. Given the quality of the basketball here in Europe, it would seem to make sense that we should be doing something here as well. We want to make sure we have a true grasp of the opportunity. We’ll take the time we need to before we decide to move forward on any initiative.” Silver is aware that European basketball is a strong entity and despite having the ability to crush opposition that is not the intent. “We certainly don’t want to do damage to the strong bones of the basketball infrastructure that are in place.” The NBA is eyeing Europe again.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
