Much is being made of NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s comments that it is his league’s “manifest destiny” to expand. Unfortunate language aside, many seem to be taking that comment wholesale while ignoring the problems Silver admits come from expanding abroad. While Silver does say he believes the globalization of the game means the NBA is destined to spread outside the United States and southern Ontario, he also admits to how difficult it would be.
Why the NBA isn’t expanding to Europe any time soon
Despite Adam Silver’s comments prior to the first London regular-season game, it will be a long time before the NBA makes the transatlantic plunge.
Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
From The Guardian:
“It would be difficult for us to have one team in Europe. We’d have to put both feet down. That would mean having four franchises in Europe. ... We’re not there yet. I know that as much growth as we’ve seen, we have a long way to go before we can sustain four franchises in Europe.”
In 2013, Silver’s predecessor David Stern said the NBA would have teams in Europe “for sure” in 20 years. That’s a long time from now. If you assume that the likely cities for teams would be London, Paris, Berlin and either Barcelona or Madrid, then NBA-quality arenas are not a problem. The problem is the risk in venturing into a new market in such a massive way. There’s a difference between sending two America-based teams to London for a couple of rare regular season games once a year and committing four full-time franchises with 41 home games.
When a North American team fails, it moves to a new North American market. There's no greater tumult for other teams in the league. (You could argue the Grizzlies' and Sonics' moves have had an adverse impact on the Blazers' travel schedule, but that's an isolated case.) If one of the four European teams fails, you'd need to find another European market or else, as Silver acknowledges by stating you need four clubs in the Old World to make it work, the entire experiment could come crashing down.
Take London, for example. Imagine it’s 2025 and the NBA sticks four teams in Europe. The London Lorries fail to capture the market, a real possibility given the complete lack of historical enthusiasm for basketball in Great Britain. Attendance is horrible and the brand never takes. What does the NBA do? Move the Lorries to Spain? Seattle? Moscow?
Travel is mentioned as a concern, and it is in the sense that the NBA travel schedule already beats down players, coaches, referees and the media. But what about the actual timing of games? Most NBA games tip at 7 or 7:30 p.m. local time. 7:30 p.m. in Berlin is 1:30 p.m. on the East Coast and 10:30 a.m. in the Pacific time zone. That is not prime time for television sports viewing on weekdays.
Now consider you’ll have some playoff games on that schedule. Major League Baseball is able to get away with day games in the playoffs, but MLB’s average fan age is like 74. It’d be a tougher project for the NBA.
I have no doubt the NBA could figure this stuff out. I just wonder if it’s worth it. There is lots of corporate sponsorship and TV money in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and France. But there’s also a good bit of money in Seattle. There’s enough dough in Chicago to support a second team and add hundreds of millions in revenue to NBA coffers. Mexico City is a lot closer than Paris. Vancouver didn’t get a fair shake. Louisville, Las Vegas, San Jose and Kansas City have big businesses, too. European expansion might be exciting, but it just seems so unnecessary.
Thankfully, it does not appear the NBA will rush into expansion abroad. The zealotry of manifest destiny is absent here, to the relief of all skeptics.
