In an Interview that will be published this Saturday in the French newspaper l’Equipe, David Stern is talking about the possible future of a NBA division in Europe.
In Europe, besides London, there are no other arenas at the moment that can be used as an NBA arena. But there are lots of projects in the pipeline. There is the O2 World in Berlin. Another arena will be built in Madrid and there are some advanced discussions about a new complex in Rome. Hamburg is also in discussions as well as Prague and Poland.
Now what these words are worth is another discussion but what comes clearly out here is that, if there ever will be a Europe Division in the NBA, the cities represented there will not be the traditional European powerhouses. On the other side, the question is if Zalgiris, Maccabi or PAO fans are interested in following NBA Europe teams.
In that article, Stern also stated that the expansion of the NBA to Europe is "possible and feasible". Another problem often discussed is the distances. On this subject, Stern added that "the moves that teams have to do are not a big deal. All depends on TV rights, ticketing politics and the number of NBA standard arenas". Finally, Big D also added that there will be no China division. "There will be a league probably, but it will be separated from our league (the NBA)".
So if this is just again some talks or real future plans, I don’t know. At least he did not want to flatter the French as he even did not mention Paris as a possibility.
