The NBA plan for Europe seems to have hit a wall. Euroleague says it is open to negotiating with the basketball powerhouse. FIBA believes any NBA involvement in Europe must go through it. Emmet Ryan writes that any successful entity really requires the support and collaboration of both.
The NBA is back in talks with Euroleague, according to Eurohoops. Any NBA move to Europe will be with FIBA, according to BasketNews. FIBA is open to speaking with both the NBA and Euroleague, once more according to Eurohoops. It can get confusing but, in truth, it should be simple. Any entry by the NBA to Europe really only makes sense if all three parties are involved.
Things have stalled
Just a few weeks ago, the rumours were flying everywhere. The NBA might pry away some big names from the Euroleague. There’d be new basketball entities created in some of Europe’s largest cities. Berlin, London, and Paris were all touted as getting new teams. The hype was flowing.
There were just a few enormous road blocks. Efforts in London have been tried before, with limited success. Berlin has a team, Alba Berlin, and it has seemingly also hit the ceiling for the sport in that city. At least for now. Then there’s Paris where the creatively named Paris Basketball is already growing.
That last one proved particularly tricky. The NBA approached Paris St Germain, the football club that also has a handball department. The Ligue 1 giants weren’t exactly impressed. That was mainly down to the lack of clarity, or really any detail at all, on what the project would involve. Meanwhile the most cash-rich and profitable clubs on the continent, namely the Greek and Turkish sides, didn’t seem under consideration. Unsurprisingly, for all the hype, things have died down.
BallinEurope is ramping up its YouTube game this season. Subscribe to our channel now for player exclusives, analysis videos, and much more.
A house divided
Regular visitors to this site know that the relationship between Euroleague and FIBA is far from perfect. It has clearly been improving but there’s still work to do. The proposed, yet extremely vague, NBA incursion into the continent looked set to widen the divide.
Smaller matters of collaboration between the two seem to have stalled during all of this. The talks of a merger between Eurocup (Euroleague’s baby) and the Basketball Champions League (FIBA’s top pan-continental competition) have essentially disappeared. The coming together over the international windows seems to also have hit a roadblock.
Naturally, Euroleague and FIBA both want to protect what’s theirs. The courtship of the NBA has also laid the groundwork for increased suspicions on both sides. At a time when the sport could make enormous leaps in Europe, one of those potential leaps is also influencing stagnation.
BallinEurope has a book, a real life actual book called I Like it Loud, and you can buy it on Amazon now. It’s here as a book and here in Kindle form.
Collaboration makes the most sense
So long as Euroleague and FIBA feel the need to defend their territory, from each other especially, any expansion from a third party will be fraught with challenges. The best case here for the NBA is to go full-on diplomat mode.
Bringing FIBA and Euroleague together, seeking to work with both of them, sends several clear messages. One, it’s a sign of strength. The NBA is the biggest business entity in basketball and it would be showing it sets the terms in this scenario. Moreover, it’s acting in a white knight role. Adam Silver could be the one to end decades of distrust in European basketball.
Lastly, and this is really important, it sets the framework for the most cost-effective approach. Whether you like to call it war or competition, any contest in basketball business only ends up costing more than it ought to for all parties. The NBA wants its incursion into Europe to be profitable. Setting the table for efficiency from the off is the best way to achieve that.
Investment in knowledge
The seemingly total lack of detail in the NBA’s plan for Europe speaks volumes about the limits of its knowledge of the market. A large chunk of it may be a single market economically but how you sell in Paris is different to Berlin or London or Madrid.
Furthermore, FIBA and Euroleague have decades of organisational knowledge when it comes to running pan-continental basketball competitions. That includes competing with one another. The value of that intellectual expertise is enormous. The NBA is essentially bringing a brand and investment to the table. The other two parties are bringing combined market knowledge that is vital to any project succeeding.
I’ve argued before that the best project the NBA could engage in is an expansion of its international games in Europe. The association seems to want something more hands on and continuous than that. If that is the case, and the NBA is serious about it being a money-maker, then getting FIBA and Euroleague to work together with them is comfortably the most efficient approach.
Leave a Reply