Adam Silver says NBA and FIBA are having 'much more serious' talks about growth in Europe

Updated Aug. 2, 2024 9:46 a.m. ET

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VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France (AP) — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was walking around a French neighborhood with his family earlier this week while visiting for the Paris Olympics and NBA jerseys were being worn by people everywhere he looked. Current ones, classic ones, he saw all kinds.

It was yet another sign of the NBA’s global reach.

“Again, it reminds me just what the opportunity really is here,” Silver said.

The question now is how to best utilize that opportunity. The NBA is ramping up talks with FIBA, the sport's global governing body, on how to best increase its competitive footprint in Europe either through an annual tournament or an NBA-operated league, Silver said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.

The talks are not new: Silver said the NBA has been holding discussions about the future of basketball in Europe for decades. But the current conversations are pointed directly toward fulfilling what the league thinks is the commercial and competitive potential of basketball in Europe, and now that the league’s new media rights deals that begin with the 2025-26 season are complete the conversations with FIBA are “much more serious,” Silver said.

“We certainly haven’t made any definitive decisions,” Silver said. “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.”

Silver said he has no preference on whether the answer is a new league or a new competition. He said his trip to the Olympics provides him and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum a chance to talk with FIBA executives, league executives and other stakeholders about the future, and Silver likened it to a listening tour.

There’s no time frame, either. But the timing to do something never has made more sense, especially given that many NBA stars — including MVPs and NBA champions like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic, the reigning scoring champion in Luka Doncic and the reigning rookie of the year in Victor Wembanyama — are from Europe. About 60 current NBA players are European, and that figure represents roughly half of the league’s international lineup. And the last two No. 1 picks, Wembanyama and Atlanta’s Zaccharie Risacher, hail from France.

“We want to make sure we have a true grasp of the opportunity,” Silver said. “We’ll take the time we need to before we decide to move forward on any initiative.”

The NBA first played an exhibition in Europe in 1984 and has been sending teams here regularly for either preseason or regular-season contests since 1993. San Antonio — Wembanyama’s team — will play Indiana in Paris twice in January, the first time that two NBA teams will play back-to-back regular-season games in Europe against one another.

As if Silver needed any more proof of the game’s popularity in Europe, he spoke Friday while at an arena about a two-hour drive north of Paris as 27,000 people watched Brazil play Japan in the Olympics. To the NBA, the fact that basketball was among the hottest tickets at the Paris Games wasn’t surprising; the league says its broadcasts are drawing record viewership and consumption in Europe.

But with an estimated 270 million basketball fans in Europe, according to the league’s research, and with a growing media market valued at more than $20 billion, it’s easy to understand why the NBA sees further growth potential.

“When we first played a preseason game in France, there were zero players from France in the NBA. We now have 14, including the last two No. 1 picks,” Silver said. “So, I think that that’s just a great example of the development we’re seeing of the game here.”

And whatever the NBA’s decision is, Silver said it will not replace the current European basketball landscape.

“We certainly don’t want to do damage to the strong bones of the basketball infrastructure that are in place,” Silver said. “On the other hand, in terms of regional and pan-regional competition here in Europe, it would be my sense — and again, I’m still studying — that lots of investors are losing significant amounts of money every year. And while this isn’t just about money, most things that continue to lose money without a trajectory towards profitability ultimately do not survive. And so, whatever we do here, I think it’s important that it’s additive to the European basketball structure.”

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

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