THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
With this year's National Basketball Association Finals underway, between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, the league has announced the teams that will be playing in Europe next season as they continue to expand the NBA brand globally.
London has been the host city when the NBA comes to the United Kingdom, but with the sport easily more transferable than its counterpart in the form of American Football, it can find new arenas to fill. With that in mind, it had already selected Manchester and the relatively new Co-op Arena as a new home. What we didn’t know were the two teams that will be competing.
Well, as fortune would have it, there could be the NBA Champions on show as the San Antonio Spurs will face off against the New Orleans Pelicans in Manchester next January. The showcase will take place just days after the two sides play in Paris, France. This is even more significant as it will be a homecoming for Victor Wembanyama, one of the league's leading players.
The Accor Arena in Paris on Thursday, January 14, 2027 will be followed by the game in Manchester on Sunday, 17 January. This is off the back of the double-header played in Berlin and London this past January, when the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies each won once. Another two games have been scheduled to take place in Berlin and Paris in 2028.
This 3 year deal comes alongside plans to launch a European NBA-run league. The NBA has emphasized Paris and Manchester as part of its plans as they look ahead to an independent European league, with both cities attracting interest from investors over having franchises in an 'NBA Europe' league, which has tentative plans to start as early as the 2027-28 season.
Soccer fans will recognize the name Daniel Levy, as the former Tottenham Hotspur Football Club chairman. He is one of the potential investors looking at the possibility of the London franchise. After leaving the Premier League club last September after almost 25 years, he has joined a bid for the NBA Europe London team being assembled by Iranian-American billionaire Jahm Najafi, an executive at MSP Sports Capital, and Liberty Global, the owner of Formula E motor racing.
There was no official word from Mr Levy, and to what extent his involvement would be, it is said that he is "actively engaged" in it. His guiding of the building of the near-63,000 capacity NFL-ready Tottenham Hotspur stadium is regarded as a great success, resulting in one of the world's finest sporting arenas.
A London NBA franchise is expected to be valued at $1bn or more. The NBA, with its business head on, is keen to negotiate and generate billions of dollars by selling the rights to teams across the continent, with big market value cities such as Berlin, Rome, Paris, Manchester, Madrid and Milan. Already, advisers to the NBA have received indicative bids from dozens of prospective investors ranging from private equity firms and football clubs to wealthy individuals and media groups.
"We have received significant interest from a range of prospective teams and investors for permanent franchise spots in a new league in Europe backed by the NBA and FIBA" said Mark Tatum, the NBA deputy commissioner. "The level of engagement and the scale of the bids reflect the marketplace’s belief in our proposed model and the enormous, untapped potential for European basketball."
The NBA has said that it will invest billions of dollars from its own financial resources to help get the league up and running. It would be a calculated risk, as trying to establish an NBA Europe team will, of course, involve substantial infrastructure costs, with some uncertainty about the league’s likely popularity given basketball’s limited previous appeal in Europe compared to sports such as football and tennis, but after the games that have been played in Paris and London, and with the future current deal still being played out to full capacity arenas, the testing of the water is very much going their way. Insiders expect it to begin choosing successful franchise bidders during the summer.
While that happens, and we await it with huge anticipation, you can get your basketball fix a lot sooner. The NBA has been growing its fanbase within the United Kingdom, with one of the sport's fastest-growing forms. 3x3 is an Olympic Sport, and its popularity has hit the classrooms of the country. It is a quick-fire game played on a half-court and, as the title suggests, is played by teams of three instead of five. Over the course of the year, schools have battled it out to play on finals day, which will be held in Trafalgar Square in London on Sunday, July 9.
This is the second year that the tournament has been held, and teams up and down the country have embraced the game and its competitiveness. Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, praised the event last year, saying: “I am proud to support this innovative collaboration between London Marathon Events and the NBA, which I hope inspires more young people to play basketball in schools across the capital.”
