Every preseason when a handful of NBA teams jump the pond to play ball in the Old Word's great cities, NBA commissioner David Stern discusses his dream of bringing a real life NBA franchise to Europe. Globalizing the game has been one of Stern's most impressive victories, and introducing the "London Gobsmackers" or some such would be some serious icing.But Stern is now dampening expectations for when this all might happen. The commish told Bill Wilson of BBC News that while the league would like to schedule a regular season game at London's (reportedly spectacular) O2 Arena before the 2012 Olympics, placing a franchise in Europe will take at least another decade. The logistics, Stern admits, are nightmarish. I'd also note that so long as there are domestic arenas in want of NBA tenants (such as Kansas City's Sprint Center), American expansion might be a more pragmatic move in the near term.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-07-2009 @ 1:12AM
Giles said...
Yes, american expansion next summer into Seattle, RiverSide, San Diego, St. PetersBurg, Missouri (Kansas) City, San Jose, Las Vegas, Austin, NashVille, Lou`sVille, JacksonVille, Richmond, or Kings county New York, Queens county New York, etc., maybe 6 teams in 6 of the top 30 or 36 markets by population, and growing by double figures, would spread these overpriced athletes around a bit, and be much cheaper to travel to than Oceania or Europe. Much better to just have the Euro champ play the Nba champ, the final exhibition game each season, since there is still no realistic hope the Euro champ would beat the Nba champ, so it doesn`t yet deserve to be right after the Nba championship. And since the US banned SuperSonic flight within its borders, the US is not able to support an SST made here or abroad, and without that speed, even Football, with its lighter schedule, would have logistical trouble, much less basketball, much less baseball.
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10-07-2009 @ 5:39AM
grover said...
Implement the Euro football plan starting next season:
D-League becomes the official #2 league to the NBA. No more linking to NBA teams - let them live on their own.
After each season, bottom 4 teams in NBA drop down to D League and top 4 teams from the D League move up.
Suddenly all those D League teams are relevant, because there's the chance they could make it to the big league!
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