It seems that all the talk of expansion around the NBA goes beyond North America, as the league has shown interest in venturing throughout the world in search of new economic opportunities that will help the sport grow. According to sources, they are in “serious conversations” with FIBA about creating a new competition together.
One of the first to the scene was The Athletic‘s Joe Vardon, who assured secretary general Andreas Zagklis was leading this new project. The reports states that the NBA-owned league would be in competition with the Euroleague and other top tournaments around the world.
“There is clear interest (by the NBA) and there are ongoing discussions with FIBA,” Zagklis shared in his annual year-end press conference this past Monday. “We’ve been having, and will continue having serious conversations with our partners in the NBA.”
FIBA will remain in “serious conversation” with the NBA about starting a new league to “compete with the EuroLeague and top pro leagues in individual countries.” 👀
(via The Athletic) pic.twitter.com/jxxSzbS6zT
— Basketball Forever (@bballforever_) December 10, 2024
After these last 2024 Summer Olympics held in Paris, NBA commissioner Adam Silver talked about expanding the game overseas and went on about an “enormous opportunity” in Europe. “It’s not something where we’ll transform a league structure in the short term,” he said in August. “But I think that there’s an appetite among our team owners for additional investment in global basketball.”
“Given the quality of basketball here in Europe, it would seem to make sense that we should be doing something here as well,” the league executive added. Now it seems as if these talks have continued to grow, especially with Zagklis saying that “next month will show where we are headed in this matter.”
As the FIBA representative said, the process has been consistent. “We want the growth of our sport, but at the same time we want to protect what are the fundamentals of our ecosystem, which cannot only relate to the rules, of course, the calendar, but it is a question of respecting the national teams, the national leagues,” Zagklis explained.
He then added: “We have a very well-developed ecosystem of national leagues and certainly (want to) protect the work not only of a few clubs, but of almost 500 or 600 clubs that are the pyramid that produces players and that has brought the sport of basketball where it is today.”
Commissioner Silver recently said that he ‘would love’ a franchise in Mexico City, but says US expansion is priority at this moment
The NBA hasn’t seen an expansion in decades, but speculation of it happening again has been confirmed by Adam Silver ever since the start of the year, when he admitted that it was on the league’s agenda for the upcoming seasons. Now that their intention is loud and clear, many cities from North America have been building up proposals.
During this year’s NBA match in Mexico City, the commissioner revealed that he would “love to have a team” in the Mexican capital, but eventually conceded by saying that this idea is still “many years off.”
Silver attended the press ahead of last month’s match between the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards at Arena CDMX, which meant the NBA’s 33rd contest in this country since 1992. Even though he recognized the possibility, he later said that it “would be more difficult to expand to Mexico City than it would be to expand to US cities that have very publicly sought NBA teams.”
“Being direct, it’s highly unlikely Mexico City would jump above US cities that are currently under consideration,” Adam added. “But at the same time, once we move into expansion mode and start looking at all the considerations that go with expansion, I think that would then allow us to have more of a template to understand whether a city like Mexico City would be suitable.”
