NBA Commissioner ‘We Continue To Explore Opportunities For A League In Europe’
Friday, January 24, 2025 at 04:04PM By Barry Janoff
January 24, 2025: As the NFL continues to cement its presence in more European cities and the NHL touts its international DNA in the 4 Nations Face-Off, the NBA has been compiling a plan to expand its footprint overseas.
Already staging standalone events in such locations as Paris, Abu-Dhabi and Mexico City, the NBA is in the process of exploring the launch of a league in Europe to mirror what it now does in Africa with Basketball Africa League in alliance with FIBA (Fédération Internationale de Basketball).
While in France this past week for the two NBA Paris Games 2025 presented by Tissot between the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers, NBA commissioner Adam Silver discussed the league’s current agenda regarding the how’s, why’s and possible when of a European undertaking.
“We continue to explore what opportunities may exist to help continue to develop the basketball infrastructure here,” Silver said during a media conference. “We have in the past talked about our exploration of a potential league here.
“I’d say to the extent that we are looking at that opportunity it would be just one piece of a larger approach to basketball throughout Europe. Anything we do would include a partnership with FIBA, although there are no agreements in place right now.
“We are still in an exploratory stage. I would say anything we have done globally has been with FIBA as our partner, for example the league we are operating in Africa.”
According to Silver, there are numerous issues that need to be addressed for the NBA to build its European blueprint.
“We have used this opportunity here over the past few days to have meetings with many different stakeholders,” he said. “Those stakeholders include leaders of clubs, FIBA, media companies, traditional sports sponsors, to best understand the landscape here and see what the opportunity may be.”
The NBA presence in Paris was supported be a roster of marketing partners.
In addition to Tissot, marketing partners included global financial Revolut (with more than 45 million customers worldwide), Foot Locker as an associate partner, NBA 2K25 and Fanatics, which with the NBA in 2022 opened the first NBA Store in Paris, operated by retail giant Lids.
Photo: NBATissot, the NBA, WNBA and NBA G League this week signed a multi-year extension of their global marketing partnerships, which began in 2015. The expanded collaboration will feature the introduction of a redesigned shot clock and timing system and make Tissot the presenting partner of an NBA Global Game in Europe for the next ten years.
“I joined the NBA right before the famous Dream Team (for the Barcelona Summer Olympics) in 1992 and have been closely watching the development of European basketball,” said Silver.
“While Europe continues to develop some of the very best players in the world — many of our most recent MVPs, of course, are European (Denver Nuggets Nikola Jokic from Serbia: 2020-21, 2021-22, 2023-24; Milwaukee Bucks Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece: 2018-19, 2019-20) — we think that the commercial opportunity has not kept pace with the growth of the game.”
Although he did not mention it by name, the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague is a top-tier organization that traces its roots back to 1957 and is operated with FIBA.
It has 18 teams, including in Athens, Barcelona, Belgrade, Berlin, Bologna, Istanbul, Madrid, Milan, Monaco and Paris. Partners include adidas, BKT, DenizBank, Motorola, Panini, Spalding, Uludag and Visa.
“The tenor of the meetings have been very positive. It's not anti-anybody or anti- any other organization," Silver said.
"When we look at that opportunity and these potential partners, what they're telling us is they believe that from a commercial standpoint, in terms of the networks they represent or are part of, or those consumer companies that they represent, that they think there's a desire to connect with consumers, particularly young consumers, which is generally the fan base of the NBA, that they think that the market is ready to do more in this sport.
“Everything is still on the table,” said Silver. “So the potential to include existing clubs — absolutely, should there be interest. Would we want to have a broad base of countries represented? Absolutely. That’s the benefit we have now by coming in and looking at this from a blank canvas.
“What we do at the NBA is we run leagues,” said Silver, stressing a NBA selling point. “We, of course, run the WNBA, we have the league in Africa, we have the G League, we have a 2K video league. So we operate five different leagues.
“We think it's an expertise we have. And so we are looking very closely to see if there's an opportunity to professionalize the game to another level here to create a larger commercial opportunity.
“And not just because commercial opportunities suggest you can grow revenue but because we believe that with markets if you can create proper incentives you can get significant additional investments and ultimately that’s the way to grow the game at all levels.
“Having had this long history from our operation of sports leagues, largely in the United States, a little bit elsewhere, seeing what’s happened in Europe, not just in basketball but in soccer as well, it gives us the opportunity to say, ‘Alright, let’s take a fresh look, what are the most effective practices for creating a commercially viable league?’ And that’s the process we’re going through right now."
The next step in the process? “We are not ready to make any additional announcements" said Silver. "We continue to learn all we can and to see if there is a path to move forward.’
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