The start of a dialogue between the NBA and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) became known on March 11. The American online publication Sportico also reported that the league has already reached an agreement with the investor, the Raine Group bank. One of the options for cooperation is the creation of an independent European NBA league. With proper funding and media support, it can change the balance of power in continental basketball, where national championships and the Euroleague now rule. The idea of a European project with American participation is not new: back in the fall of 2021, the Spanish Marca wrote about consultations between the NBA and FIBA.
So far, neither side has confirmed information about a possible agreement. But it’s clear that the NBA is already crowded in North America. The league has long been trying to attract foreign fans, and in recent years it has been actively working in China and Africa.
Synonym for basketball
One of the NBA’s most visible activities outside of the United States and Canada is exhibition matches. The teams have been holding pre-season meetings on other continents since the late 1970s: in 1988 they even visited the USSR, and in recent years they have regularly visited Saudi Arabia. Since 1990, clubs began flying to other countries for regular season matches. At first, the main destination was Japan, later Mexico and the UK, and in 2020 Paris was added. The last NBA away match took place in January 2024 with the participation of Cleveland and Brooklyn at the 16,000-seat Accord Arena in the capital of France.
The NBA tour has the obvious goal of reaching new audiences, but it’s not the league’s only outward-facing project. “A couple of years ago they launched the Hoop Cities campaign,” says Vedomosti. Sports” Konstantin Nazarov, head of the marketing group Celeba Sport. – This is a short documentary series about the basketball cities of Europe: Paris, Belgrade, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Vilnius, etc. The NBA has many art projects around the world, for example, they are renovating courts in South or Central America. In general, like any big league, the association has a big strategy to grab a piece of broadcasting and make money. The second target is the players. The NBA holds camps to develop local basketball players.”
Foreign expansion is dictated, among other things, by the fact that the US market, despite its impressive size, has already been conquered and leaves no room for growth.
In the summer of 2022, the NBA announced that league revenues for the 2021/22 season exceeded $10 billion for the first time. A year later, they increased to $10.58 billion. Only American football has more: the National Football League (NFL) in the same 2022 reported $18 billion in revenue. One of the NBA’s biggest advantages over the NFL is the global nature of basketball. He is watched and understood in many countries, and not only Americans play for the clubs. However, the NBA’s income from the European market is quite modest. According to Sportico, they are measured in hundreds of millions of dollars.
“American basketball is not really a sport, but rather an entertainment industry, like cinema or music,” he says in a conversation with Vedomosti. Sports” basketball agent Maxim Sharifyanov. – The expansion of the NBA into Europe has the same origin as the expansion of Hollywood throughout the world. The home market has been conquered, and we need to enter a new one to earn more money.” At the same time, Sharifyanov adds that there may also be a sports motivation in this expansion. It is due to the fact that the number of players from different countries in the NBA is growing and the non-American influence on the basketball component is very large. We are talking about Slovenian Luka Doncic (Dallas), Serbian Nikola Jokic (Denver), Greek with Nigerian roots Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee), Frenchman Victor Vembanyam (San Antonio) and other stars. Their impressive performance is encouraging them to expand into other regions. One of the directions is Africa. Since 2017, the NBA Academy has been based in Senegal, and in 2021, the African Basketball League started – an international tournament for 12 clubs from different countries. Activity in Africa, according to Sharifyanov, is unlikely to promise large profits, but will help the league quickly attract local talent if it appears.
The situation with China is different – here the league actively promotes its own product, because in China basketball is one of the most popular sports. To do this, the NBA cooperates, for example, with the investment holding Tencent, which owns local social networks; under the contract, the league will earn $1.5 billion until 2025. However, in 2019, cooperation was suspended amid statements by Houston general manager Daryl Morey, supported the protests in Hong Kong, but the pandemic helped settle the conflict.
Now the NBA has intensified its European direction, the action plan for which remains secret for now. But the league is obviously working to capture new markets.
“The NBA is trying to brand basketball itself so that there is no other basketball left,” says Stanislav Yakovlev, co-founder of the creative agency Special One, which works with sports clubs. – So that children have a direct association: basketball is the NBA. How Pampers became synonymous with diapers, and Xerox became synonymous with copiers, although this is the name of the brand, not the product itself. If this happens, then everything will end in total hegemony with maximum commercialization of everything.”
Yakovlev believes that FIBA does not need large-scale interaction with the NBA, but it will not be able to resist the pressure of the league. According to him, this story is similar to the situation with the Super League, which should become a replacement for UEFA tournaments, but with the only amendment that European football officials have much more opportunities to defend their own interests.
Euroleague – that’s it?
FIBA’s difficult situation is illustrated by the federation’s inability to reach an agreement with the leaders of the Euroleague. These are two independent structures, and conflicts regularly arise between them. FIBA oversees the most important national team tournaments, but is not as influential at the club level. The Federation holds the Champions League and the European Cup (formerly the Challenge Cup), but these competitions are not as high-profile and commercially successful compared to the Euroleague. Structures compete for the attention of the audience, and this is expressed, for example, in the schedule: the calendars of different tournaments overlapped each other for many years, which is why the players involved in the most prestigious European Cup could not play for the national team.
Closer cooperation with the NBA may deprive FIBA of independence, but will become an important argument in the fight against the Euroleague. It may not have enough resources (in 2022 it reported income of just 100 million euros) to compete with a famous, rich and influential brand. However, the Euroleague also has a trump card – the very specifics of European basketball, which is very different from the NBA.
“The Euroleague is a successful product, which, however, compared to, for example, football, is flawed and does not bring in money,” says Sharifyanov. – The clubs are subsidized, and the economics of basketball in Europe are deplorable. But you won’t get basketball of a higher quality in terms of sports, because all the stars who play outside the NBA play in the Euroleague. And from the point of view of play, dedication, density of results, the Euroleague is tournament No. 1. It is impossible to watch the NBA regular season in your right mind. In the USA it’s entertainment. You can turn on an NBA game from anywhere and turn it off at any time, and you will still have fun, because you will see some highlights and A-list stars – highly paid actors.”
Sharifyanov believes that the Euroleague could well be ranked higher if not for problems with financing. For example, it receives very little from television rights: in 2023, the Euroleague transferred a portion of broadcast revenue to clubs – a total of 33.7 million euros. By comparison, the NBA earns $2.6 billion a year under its contract with local broadcasters ESPN and TNT.
“To simplify, Europe has a packaging problem,” explains Nazarov. – Few can compare with the NBA. European clubs and leagues aren’t trying to do anything cool on social media. At the same time, every NBA team once a year before the start of the season rolls out a video dedicated to the calendar. This works very well for loyalty. In Europe, and specifically in basketball, they don’t do this, and no tectonic shift occurs.”
At the same time, Nazarov emphasizes that the culture of pain in Europe is very strong, especially in Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Spain and Israel. This is partly due to the fact that in Europe, teams in different sports (football, basketball, etc.) can compete under the same club brand – and the club’s fans support them all.
Euroleague in Asia
The leaders of the Euroleague are also not sitting idle, but are looking for new sources of funding. In the summer of 2022, the structure was headed by the former world champion in the Yugoslav national team, Dejan Bodiroga. The new CEO is looking for investors in the Middle East. Already in the fall of the same year, information leaked to the press about negotiations between the Euroleague and Fly Emirates, which could become a title sponsor. Now another carrier, Turkish Airlines, plays this role and pays 10 million euros per year under the contract (expires in 2025). Fly Emirates is ready to increase the amount by 5-6 times.
$150 million should be brought in by the inclusion of a club from the UAE, which doesn’t even have a name yet, in the tournament’s roster. Perhaps he will also debut in 2025. In February, the Spanish publication Encestando wrote that the Euroleague would sign a seven-year cooperation agreement with Dubai. It, in particular, provides for the holding of the Final Four matches at the local Etihad Arena. One draw will bring the Euroleague $25 million. However, there is no official confirmation of these transactions yet.
“The donation of Emirati sheikhs to European basketball seems more natural to me,” says Sharifyanov. “Perhaps the NBA simply doesn’t understand that they won’t get enough of the European market to recoup the costs of creating a league or at least a team here.” Yes, the fan base will grow and a certain number of solvent Europeans may become fans of NBA clubs, but this will not work globally. If only because in England, Germany, Italy and Spain the No. 1 sport will remain football.”
