It is now almost certain that the National Basketball Association, aka the NBA, will launch an NBA Europe league, perhaps as soon as next year. The decision was announced last summer, and the league seems to be powering ahead with plans to completely upend the structures of basketball in Europe.
And that is likely to include franchises for British NBA teams, most probably in London and Manchester, and possibly elsewhere in the country.
There is, of course, no guarantee that it will be a success, but there is every reason to think it might be. Basketball’s popularity has grown immensely in Europe in recent years, thanks in part to a golden generation of European-based players plying their trade in America. Twenty years ago, there was a handful of Europeans playing across the league – none of whom were household names. Today, many of the best players, such as Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic and Victor Wembanyama, are from Europe. There’s been a huge shift.
Basketball remains relatively niche in the UK
But you should note that basketball remains niche in the UK, and the European invasion that has rattled NBA rosters does not include a wave of British players. Indeed, even in the European competitions, British teams are not counted among the elite. So, it might seem a bit strange for the NBA to target the UK market.
That said, the growth in basketball’s popularity among younger people in Britain has been stark. The country arguably lacks the facilities and academies that places such as France boast, but the gap is closing. What’s more, the popularity of the NBA has soared in the UK. This is evident in everything from social media to viewing figures to volumes for betting on NBA games. The appetite for the league is healthy in the UK, so it feels normal to be optimistic about the expansion.
Investment will play a key role
Money will be important, however. Teams based in London and Manchester will not be obliged to pick UK players, and the NBA has enough international pull to attract big investors in British teams. It is conceivable that some of the top players will be happy to choose London and Manchester over Barcelona and Paris, should the money be right. The NBA does have different rules than, say, football when it comes to signing players, and we imagine some sort of draft system will be introduced, but the ability to offer big contracts counts when trying to build elite teams.
Nonetheless, it represents a risk to build teams from scratch in a country that – with all due respect to those who have been fostering basketball programmes and leagues in the UK – does not have much of a basketball heritage. We said earlier that basketball was growing at a steady clip in Britain, but it still remains highly niche when compared to sports like football, rugby and cricket.
We will have to wait for the NBA to come up with a clear pathway for NBA Europe, though it almost seems set in stone that it will happen. Then, we will know where the teams will be based in the UK and what the makeup of the wider league will look like. As to the question of whether it will be a success or not, we may have to wait a few years to see if the UK really is fertile ground for the world’s most successful basketball competition to set down some new roots.
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