It seems that all the talk of expansion around the NBA goes beyond North America, as the league has shown interest in venturing throughout the world in search of new economic opportunities that will help the sport grow. According to sources, they are in “serious conversations” with FIBA about creating a new competition together.
One of the first to the scene was The Athletic‘s Joe Vardon, who assured secretary general Andreas Zagklis was leading this new project. The reports states that the NBA-owned league would be in competition with the Euroleague and other top tournaments around the world.
“There is clear interest (by the NBA) and there are ongoing discussions with FIBA,” Zagklis shared in his annual year-end press conference this past Monday. “We’ve been having, and will continue having serious conversations with our partners in the NBA.”
FIBA will remain in “serious conversation” with the NBA about starting a new league to “compete with the EuroLeague and top pro leagues in individual countries.” 👀
(via The Athletic) pic.twitter.com/jxxSzbS6zT
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After these last 2024 Summer Olympics held in Paris, NBA commissioner Adam Silver talked about expanding the game overseas and went on about an “enormous opportunity” in Europe. “It’s not something where we’ll transform a league structure in the short term,” he said in August. “But I think that there’s an appetite among our team owners for additional investment in global basketball.”
“Given the quality of basketball here in Europe, it would seem to make sense that we should be doing something here as well,” the league executive added. Now it seems as if these talks have continued to grow, especially with Zagklis saying that “next month will show where we are headed in this matter.”
As the FIBA representative said, the process has been consistent. “We want the growth of our sport, but at the same time we want to protect what are the fundamentals of our ecosystem, which cannot only relate to the rules, of course, the calendar, but it is a question of respecting the national teams, the national leagues,” Zagklis explained.
He then added: “We have a very well-developed ecosystem of national leagues and certainly (want to) protect the work not only of a few clubs, but of almost 500 or 600 clubs that are the pyramid that produces players and that has brought the sport of…