Last year there were 3 French and 2 German teams in the Euroleague.

Germany national team is the current World Champion and French has the highest number of players in the NBA behind USA and Canada.

I think the public attitude towards RB Leipzig for the last 15 years should tell you what Germany will think about a franchised basketball league.

Foreign billionaires owning plastic teams aren’t exactly popular right now.

Germany has well established basketball clubs as well, good luck trying to replace Alba Berlin or Bayern Munich for example.

They will acquire them and merge.

You dont think the UK needs them?

Woah woah woah, 114, they were cleared of one of them

How?

Euroleague already has 2 teams in Israel

The EuroLeague already has a team in Dubai!

FIBA (the organization the NBA is partnering with for NBA Europe) has considered Israel (both the national team and clubs) part of Europe for a while now, so yeah, very likely.

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You guys do understand the reason why israel is part of european competitions in every sport in the first place is because when they were in asian/middle eastern competition, half the other nations would not play them.

I’m also sure you’re intelligent enough to understand the security issues it would create for the israeli teams traveling to certain middle eastern country whenever they have to play certain clubs.

I feel like it’s a lose-lose though because if that happens then you’ve already alienated 50% of Manchester proper and probably all of Liverpool. Dunno if limiting your local fanbase like that is the right move, but it’s also a challenge to get people engaged in a “grassroots” team

NFL EUROPE dissolved in 2007.

So no, it didn’t do well

i think they are recruiting some existing clubs to join for that reason.

I don’t know, London has a metro population of over 15 million, and a whole lot of well off folks. There is plenty of demand for pro sports, but it has to be good entertainment/professional

Edit: wow, a lot of people seem to know London better than me, a resident who goes to track and field, swimming, tennis, rugby, and cricket in the city.

Shoot, there were even massive crowds for table tennis world championships earlier this year

I love the dream of different African nations having their professional basketball league, but the reality is going to turn out a nightmare.

Let me put it this way. Kylian Mbappe is considered by many to be one of today’s absolute best soccer players. When growing up as a teenager in France, he was turning out to be a generational talent. So his father wished for him to play for their ancestral country: Cameroon. But when his father contacted the Cameroonian FA, he was told it would only be possible if they grease some palms.

This is only one anecdote of many I could tell. But the truth is neither the infrastructure nor the mentality is there to take on a project like NBA Africa. I would love it to be otherwise.

Honest question, what’s their issue? Just a team I associate with good basketball.

How many Spanish players go to the NBA without playing in La Liga?

We’re talking about the ability to develop european players. NCAA teams develop american players.

They expanded to having a team in Dubai, they are counting on oil money investments to survive

British people barely know the concept of basketball

You clearly have zero information on European basketball.

Personally I don’t have a problem with growing, but then make it at the same level as it is in the US. Not design it to be second rated crap whose whole point is to feed players into the main league while taking all the costs for doing that and getting nothing in return. It’s like a job applicant who spends whole hour listing what he expects to get from the employer and then can’t name a single thing that he can offer in return.

Because it has the possibility of economically strangling local traditional clubs which are important for their respective local cultures

Maybe a dozen people in here actually watch euro league consistently so don’t expect any informed takes on this. But people are assuming NBA bad and big money bad so NBA Europe bad. Whether that’s true or not I can’t tell you lol

Cuz they are not investing in basketball but trying to commercialize it and turn into nba. The beauty of eurloeague is that there no constand ads and breaks so you actually watch basketball. teams are not franchizes like in nba so they are usually connected to cities and have established culture with city, not moving around like in US. Finally, players are more motivated to play for their local team as it’s their dream and not chasing money immediately. This way with nba unlimited money and made up teams in non basketball cities, you’ll get longer games, more ads, less basketball, sterile atmosphere and fans, and players only caring about money and looking at basketball as work only. Oh and also a lot lf Eurloeague teams are fan owned

Because limiting USA players is actually a bad thing for European players’ development.

Competition leads to improvement.

There’s already established leagues and the nba is going to try and compete with that for some reason

Which is why it’s not competition in a way that actually breeds innovation. Just another company taking a loss for years until the competition dries up completely, and then slowly gouging prices once it gets a monopoly in the area.

I genuinely hope that smart countries with strong laws can buffer existing leagues from this kind of pressure. World talent in basketball is already on the rise. The sport does not need the NBA to grow beyond the US any more than it already has.

You’re making it sound like this will lead to more skilled players when you’re really just talking about innovation in the business of sports.

Maybe the NBA should directly partner with colleges instead.

True, it would be difficult. But I could see if they have separate owners not tied to existing teams, they could draw high end college players who would normally go undrafted, or high schoolers who don’t want to go to college. Just takes genuine investment and development to give it some sort of value

this is probably impossible but i feel like g league and NCAA should just merge at this point.

That would suck.

I don’t know men, everything I know about european sport makes me think it won’t work, but let’s see.

For reference, yesterday I saw two news related to Italian basket:

• Fortitudo Bologna, an historic team that plays on the second Italian league and has not been strong for decades, sold around 5k season tickets. Only Milano can compare to those number in Italy

• Brescia is playing the third Italian league this year after selling the team rights to a new Rome team. The other day the arena was PACKED, despite the lower level than before

All of this to show how much a fan value his own team much more than results or talents

It took decades and a great stroke of luck in having the most prolific scorer in college basketball ever join the league. I’m not saying that as a reflection of WNBA players but it’s just true. Prior to Clark, the WNBA was an asterisk and a lot of people didn’t even know it was still around.

Well if they changed it, it wouldn’t be the G league. It would be an extension of the NBA in more cities around North America. At the moment, a lot of those teams are in smaller cities near their bigger affiliate. If they were treated as separate teams, they could relocate to other cities that could sustain a basketball team. We talk about expansion all the time and all these these cities that would love an NBA team. Well that would be their chance

I live in Germany and even the 4th league football (soccer) teams have rabid fans packing the stadium. I used to regularly go to third league Basketball games, and it was always full. Yes of course the money goes down with each level. It’s a lower level product. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. That’s like suggesting that people shouldn’t watch college or high school games because the teams are worse.

Because as Europeans we generally dislike outsiders upsetting our ecosystems, and the US is not exactly popular right now. Which is a huge understatement.

America has always heavily exported its culture

As if he ain’t tap dancing to the beat of the board of governors, some of the richest guys in America.

Best players in Euroleague are being paid a lot more than a players on a veteran minimums in the NBA.

I don’t see NBA Europe handing out the contracts out of the gate that exceed those vet minimums.

This is supposed to be a glorified European version of G-League which I just don’t see how it can be successful.

Like at all lol

Then why is America in the middle of the map on my wall?

Problem is, I dont know who the audience is.

I lived in Europe, and went to games.

They dont “watch” basketball. They LIVE it. They LIIIIIIVEEE it.

I went to a Pana - Fener game, and that shit was like an NBA finals game 7 x5 on steroids.

That type of fanbase will not watch whatever this project is unless they can snag those old club teams from Euroleague.

And trying to make bball happen in Britain is…. just plain idiotic. Those concussed islanders barely understand soccer itself, let alone basketball.

Exactly, it’s less on what the NBA did to promote the league and more so genuine player development coming into the league.

And the nba would then need to stand up junior training academies to compete with the Euroleague / Europe club infrastructure as well

I mean mostly their koshien tournaments of their grade school which is equivalent to march madness college for us. I feel like if you build it from the root the rest comes along naturally.

Vast majority of soccer fans I’ve interacted with in real life don’t “reject” Americans. Now that I think of it, the vast majority on that subreddit too lmfao

Well, the fact it’s r soccer is a win for American fans

You spend the money on the league and the product. Now dictating how they invest it isn’t dictated by you. Once you spend the money it’s not yours.

Indycar was almost bankrupt because of the CART split.

It depends on how saturated the specific sports field becomes.

But each league will have only chunks of the talent and a smaller pool insulates players from maximum improvement. In other words both leagues will be worse in terms of top level play. Or one league will be really dogshit and the other will be fine.

No one actually think uber replacing taxis was a bad thing btw. Taxis are an aweful product

Competition and investment. Why is that inherently bad?

I mean, it’s theoretically adding money. The WNBA struggles for revenue because it’s relatively unaesthetic. A men’s league funded by the NBA could be a big addition for the NBA.

For Europe, it probably doesn’t do much. Maybe even hurts the current leagues, and thus an American company would be making money from a decent European organization as is. Could also lead to a worse product (more akin to NBA w/ fouls)

That’s not why people hate it, first of all. Second of all, we all know European sports leagues are immune to sports washing. Lmao

Who is “we” and who is “us”

They are both commercial entities lol

You can be a “sporting association” and a commercial entity, which said clubs also are