Adam Silver Says NBA Is Considering European Expansion

[Euroleague]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2013/11/10/adam-silver-prepares-for-life-david-stern-successor-commissioner-seat/4uDDs1pl7OsduJ1ayWg0qO/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw

Stern hinted for years about placing an expansion team in Europe, but didn

[MP.Trey]

That travel doe

[Fudge]

LMAO

Never gonna happen. Nobody wants to play for a team in fcking Europe.

[Jameerthefear]

There is literally 0 chance this happens anytime soon.

[CelticBaller]

NoLinksYo used a source? :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

[AirTupac]

I just cant see it happening. Players won't be able to handle the back and forth travelling, especially if they're longer flights. In the future, most likely.

[AirTupac]

LMAO

Never gonna happen. Nobody wants to play for a team in fcking Europe.

Lmao the players will play anywhere that gives them millions upon millions to play basketball. As if they have any real power.

[Fudge]

Lmao the players will play anywhere that gives them millions upon millions to play basketball. As if they have any real power.
Lmao naw bro, trust. Nobody wants to play in fcking Europe.

[Rekindled]

no one will watch early afternoon games. and the travel and timezone will make it impossible. they are just saying this to increase interest there.

[niko]

Holy Shit, there's a real source.

[Meticode]

This would such a stupid idea. With the 82 game season I'm sure any players wouldn't want the air travel.

[Noof]

It would never work. Teams going to and from Europe would be really jet lagged and lose most games. Unless they gave them long-ass breaks before and after a Europe trip, which would screw up the schedule and force even more back to backs than we already have.

[Le Shaqtus]

Travel would be too much, especially with 82 games.

[bdreason]

They would have to make a separate 8 team European league. For that reason alone I don't see it happening anytime soon.

[Euroleague]

LMAO

Never gonna happen. Nobody wants to play for a team in fcking Europe.

Stern said over and over he was talking about a European DIVISION. So your point does not even make sense.

[Euroleague]

no one will watch early afternoon games. and the travel and timezone will make it impossible. they are just saying this to increase interest there.

Stern said over and over a European DIVISION. Not one of your points is even valid.

[Euroleague]

They would have to make a separate 8 team European league. For that reason alone I don't see it happening anytime soon.

As Stern said over and over, the plan was for a 5 team European division.

[Jameerthefear]

It doesn't matter what Stern says. This is his last year.

[Fudge]

Stern said over and over he was talking about a European DIVISION. So your point does not even make sense.
O ya? Stern ain't gonna be the commissioner in 3 months buddy. :roll: :roll: :roll:

Fvck what Stern says. Nobody wants to play for shitty Euro cities.

[Euroleague]

It doesn't matter what Stern says. This is his last year.

So you actually think Stern and Silver have different plans? Or that either one of them actually are behind the plans?

:facepalm

[Euroleague]

O ya? Stern ain't gonna be the commissioner in 3 months buddy. :roll: :roll: :roll:

Fvck what Stern says. Nobody wants to play for shitty Euro cities.


What the hell?

Yeah........1/3 of the NBA is European and "nobody wants to play there"........

:biggums:

And you actually think places like Moscow, Athens, Paris, Rome, Munich, Berlin, London, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Istanbul, etc. are worse cities than any number of POS NBA cities.........

wow, you are unbelievably STUPID.

[Fudge]

What the hell?

Yeah........1/3 of the NBA is European and "nobody wants to play there"........

:biggums:

And you actually think places like Moscow, Athens, Paris, Rome, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Istanbul, etc. are worse cities than any number of POS NBA cities.........

wow, you are unbelievably STUPID
:roll: :roll:

I repeat, NOBODY wants to play for shitty Euro cities. Do you not get that? Stick to watching NBA has-beens in your shitty D3 leagues. Quit being an idiot.

[Euroleague]

:roll: :roll:

I repeat, NOBODY wants to play for shitty Euro cities. Do you not get that? Stick to watching NBA has-beens in your shitty D3 leagues. Quit being an idiot.

Yeah because Salt Lake City sure looks more appealing than Paris or because Philly sure looks more appealing than Rome.

Milwaukee clearly is way nicer than Barcelona.

STFU

[russwest0]

why the hell would people want to play in Europe, USA is #1

[Fudge]

Yeah because Salt Lake City sure looks more appealing than Paris or because Philly sure looks more appealing than Rome.

Milwaukee clearly is way nicer than Barcelona.

STFU
Exactly. You're kind of getting it now.

Yo honestly, I think players would even play for shitholes like Cleveland or Detroit WAY before they'd dip their feet into European soil. Just saying. :oldlol: I'm being serious when I say that NOBODY want's to play for European cities. How's that so hard to understand?

:confusedshrug:

[russwest0]

the shittiest usa city is still greater than euroupres prized possesion

america is fcking elite our economo rox and our citzens well educated and shit shit niqqa we could evicirate all of erupre at push of red button sayin nuke

[outbreak]

Doesn't take much for the bigoted assholes on this forum to raise their heads does it?

This idea has been talked about for years now as their goal but I thought most of the other articles all refer to it as in the future or say within the next 20 years or some large time frame. I don't see it happening any time soon, travel times would need to improve first I think. It'll happen eventually though the NBA is too set on grabbing that market to not do it. The original premiss I heard was a team would go over and play for a couple weeks in europe and then head back to the states.

I also agree though you may see some teams having a hard time getting players to want to play over there, nothing to do with the city in general like some racists here are sprouting, purely with the distance they need to move and the culture shock of living in a foreign country. If it increased the amount of europeans comming into the league maybe it'd help a bit, there's a large amount already but it's spread over all the teams and I doubt they want it to just become 5 full euro teams vs regular mixed nba teams. It could work though, who knows if they were run well they could compete.

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

so stupid (especially for the NFL which wants a London team...). Makes 0 sense logistically...

[bagelred]

Well, now that Hyperspace has been invented, European teams make too much sense. :cheers:

[MetsPackers]

I don't see why players wouldn't want to go there. I'd definitely want to go bang mad Bulgarian hoes and be worshiped by the entire countries basketball fanbase than go play in Milwaukee where nobody even cares.


That being said it won't even happen within the next decade if it ever does. Just working out the schedule alone would take monthes and monthes of planning ahead each year

[red1]

still just a pipedream

[Dr.J4ever]

Guys euroleague is right this time. If it makes sense financially, it'll happen. The nba will not risk someone else filling the void. Imagine a future european conference. The battle of cultures and styles of play would be exciting.

[kurt_rambis]

it's hard enough to get guys to play in canada, let alone europe...

it would be a huge undertaking. adding 4-5 new teams doesn't seem likely, so they'd probably have to do some combination of merging with euroleague and moving current nba teams.

teams would probably be required to have a certain number of roster spots set aside for european players, if only to help with local interest. that might water the overall nba product down a bit, but if they're only adding 2-3 net teams then it shouldn't be too bad.

tv is a huge deal nowadays, so playing in the early afternoon would problematic, especially during the playoffs. you'd have a lot of 9pm start times for games in europe, so at least the east coast could watch at a reasonable hour. if any of these teams ever got to the finals it would be a big scandal. the west coast would have games starting at 12 in the afternoon, which would significantly impact tv ratings.

only way i could really see this working is if they got some of the big euro soccer clubs involved, like barca or real madrid. they're the only ones with the kind of money it would take to get an nba franchise off the ground, and who knows if they're even interested

[Euroleague]

Doesn't take much for the bigoted assholes on this forum to raise their heads does it?

This idea has been talked about for years now as their goal but I thought most of the other articles all refer to it as in the future or say within the next 20 years or some large time frame. I don't see it happening any time soon, travel times would need to improve first I think. It'll happen eventually though the NBA is too set on grabbing that market to not do it. The original premiss I heard was a team would go over and play for a couple weeks in europe and then head back to the states.

I also agree though you may see some teams having a hard time getting players to want to play over there, nothing to do with the city in general like some racists here are sprouting, purely with the distance they need to move and the culture shock of living in a foreign country. If it increased the amount of europeans comming into the league maybe it'd help a bit, there's a large amount already but it's spread over all the teams and I doubt they want it to just become 5 full euro teams vs regular mixed nba teams. It could work though, who knows if they were run well they could compete.

Stern said numerous times he meant integrating 5 Euroleague teams into the NBA.

[Euroleague]

I don't see why players wouldn't want to go there. I'd definitely want to go bang mad Bulgarian hoes and be worshiped by the entire countries basketball fanbase than go play in Milwaukee where nobody even cares.


That being said it won't even happen within the next decade if it ever does. Just working out the schedule alone would take monthes and monthes of planning ahead each year

Once again, Stern said over and over the plan was for a European division. How many times does that have to be explained?

[Euroleague]

it's hard enough to get guys to play in canada, let alone europe...

it would be a huge undertaking. adding 4-5 new teams doesn't seem likely, so they'd probably have to do some combination of merging with euroleague and moving current nba teams.

teams would probably be required to have a certain number of roster spots set aside for european players, if only to help with local interest. that might water the overall nba product down a bit, but if they're only adding 2-3 net teams then it shouldn't be too bad.

tv is a huge deal nowadays, so playing in the early afternoon would problematic, especially during the playoffs. you'd have a lot of 9pm start times for games in europe, so at least the east coast could watch at a reasonable hour. if any of these teams ever got to the finals it would be a big scandal. the west coast would have games starting at 12 in the afternoon, which would significantly impact tv ratings.

only way i could really see this working is if they got some of the big euro soccer clubs involved, like barca or real madrid. they're the only ones with the kind of money it would take to get an nba franchise off the ground, and who knows if they're even interested

In case you can't grasp it on your own, the TV market in Europe is much bigger than the one in USA, and it already watches way more Euroleague than NBA already, probably by about 5 to 1 at least already.

You do realize that a gigantic TV market in Europe would be available to watch the games in Europe right? Or do you think the entire TV viewing world only exists in the USA?

Also, believe it or not, there are many many clubs in Europe with enormous amounts of money. Not just Barca and Real. Do you actually believe that Prokhorov was the ONLY rich owner in the entire continent of Europe?

There are tons of clubs in Europe with billions upon billions of dollars.

Americans are so obsessed with USA being the center of the universe that they cannot even grasp reality. Europe is a bigger TV market, bigger sports market, it's a bigger population, it has bigger and richer clubs (with far bigger fan bases), none of what you are saying even makes sense.

The only obstacle to this would simply be the NBA deciding to do it. Financially, Europe is ahead in every single way and NBA would make more money in Europe.

The obstacle would be NBA American owners blocking it over fear they could never ever compete with the much much much richer owners in Europe.

And remember how European sports culture is...........there is no such things as a salary cap and it would never be allowed under EU law. So the teams in Europe and the owners in Europe could spend whatever they wanted to. And the big time owners in Europe are all Mark Cuban types, only most of them have way more money than he does.

[InspiredLebowski]

You'd need at least a 4 team or so division, have teams go on a 10 day road trip and play all 4, those 4 go on like 3 week long barnstorming US trips basically.

But forget the travel, the monetary and law differences are the problem.

[KobeClutchAsFK]

I don't see how the players' union would let this happen without some kind of trade restrictions.

Sure, Europe is fun to visit. But when a player has a life here in the states, with friends and family, how do you think he's going to like having his ass traded 8000 miles away from california to germany?

[kurt_rambis]

In case you can't grasp it on your own, the TV market in Europe is much bigger than the one in USA, and it already watches way more Euroleague than NBA already, probably by about 5 to 1 at least already.

You do realize that a gigantic TV market in Europe would be available to watch the games in Europe right? Or do you think the entire TV viewing world only exists in the USA?

Also, believe it or not, there are many many clubs in Europe with enormous amounts of money. Not just Barca and Real. Do you actually believe that Prokhorov was the ONLY rich owner in the entire continent of Europe?

There are tons of clubs in Europe with billions upon billions of dollars.

Americans are so obsessed with USA being the center of the universe that they cannot even grasp reality. Europe is a bigger TV market, bigger sports market, it's a bigger population, it has bigger and richer clubs (with far bigger fan bases), none of what you are saying even makes sense.

The only obstacle to this would simply be the NBA deciding to do it. Financially, Europe is ahead in every single way and NBA would make more money in Europe.

The obstacle would be NBA American owners blocking it over fear they could never ever compete with the much much much richer owners in Europe.

And remember how European sports culture is...........there is no such things as a salary cap and it would never be allowed under EU law. So the teams in Europe and the owners in Europe could spend whatever they wanted to. And the big time owners in Europe are all Mark Cuban types, only most of them have way more money than he does.

it's obviously a big market, but it's not a big market for basketball. the nba is expected get over $1.5 billion dollars a year from it's tv partners starting in 2015-16, when it's current deals come to an end. european broadcasters can't be expected to pay anywhere near that for what is basically a niche sport. the us tv market will definitely remain the priority

how many of those big time clubs with rich owners are already involved in euroleague, and would be willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars? as far as i can tell it's barca, real madrid, and maybe cska. i'm looking at a list of the richest soccer clubs in europe, and only a few of them have basketball sides in euroleague. i'm aware that there are wealthy people in europe, but how many of them want to make a huge investment in a relatively unfamiliar sport?

it's doubtful the nba would allow euro teams to play under different salary cap rules than the rest of the league, so that would be another sticking point

[9512]

If silver wants to follow stern's foot steps in enforcing the policies, he should look for euro countries that have little to nothing.

Lithuania is perfect. They appreciate basketball and I am not sure if there is any competition when it comes to team sports. Olympic wrestling and strong man competitors (after all it's the land the superior mountain warrior) are the only competitors to nba there. Just like Sacramento, San Antonio, and OKC.

And with multi millionaire players they could bang those poor euro blondes and get child support that could support her, her kid, and the rest of her Lithuanian family.

This will stimulate their economy a whole lot.

[InspiredLebowski]

Sure, Europe is fun to visit. But when a player has a life here in the states, with friends and family, how do you think he's going to like having his ass traded 8000 miles away from california to germany?I understand it's a much bigger difference, but nobody gives a shit when a guy gets traded from Miami to Portland. Or just Indiana to Chicago.

[kurt_rambis]

I don't see how the players' union would let this happen without some kind of trade restrictions.

Sure, Europe is fun to visit. But when a player has a life here in the states, with friends and family, how do you think he's going to like having his ass traded 8000 miles away from california to germany?
that's a fair point. guys seriously complain about having to play in toronto. try telling them they're going to fcking moscow :roll:

[Horde of Temujin]

LMAO

Never gonna happen. Nobody wants to play for a team in fcking Europe.

Europe is popping. Wtf are you talking about?

[SacJB Shady]

I really don't know if this is the way to go. Why can't Europe just have their own league? The olympics every few years is good enough imo.

[Lakers Legend#32]

Expand to Seattle first! Or bring back home the franchise trapped in OKC backwaters.

NBA you owe us, B!tch.

[InspiredLebowski]

Expand to Seattle first! Or bring back home the franchise trapped in OKC backwaters.

NBA you owe us, B!tch.The NBA exists to make money. Seattle told them to pay for their own building that would be a net loss with construction. Good for Seattle. Good for the actual city of Seattle.

I feel for diehard Sonics fans, but you weren't a majority. And after the shit they tried to pull on Sacto they need to get the **** over it. A shitload of Seattle assholes came out of the woodwork during that ordeal. Now they're just licking their lips hoping they can rip the hearts out of a Milwaukee fanbase and ignoring the complete hypocrisy of it all.

That small pocket of Seattle fans that are expansion or nothing, I salute you. The rest of you mother****ers that want to steal a franchise after all the SonicsGate fuss you raised, how your franchise was stolen, go to hell. Enjoy rooting for the Huskies and watching all your talented guards play in the NBA anywhere but home.

[Nero Tulip]

Pretty sure most players would rather live in London than Detroit.

[BoutPractice]

Yeah.
It's going to happen eventually, the key word here being eventually. Let's not forget for instance that they're working on a passenger jet that could do London-Sidney in only 4 hours.

[rustycage]

People here seem to concentrate on tv markets and flying issues, when the real problem is taxation, which is not even equal among European countries (this is, for instance, how Spanish soccer teams could afford to give players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Modric, Kak

[rustycage]

...and, by the way, players don't go/stay to/in Toronto not because of the city or because it's annoying to use a passport, but because of taxation.

[gabepizza]

In case you can't grasp it on your own, the TV market in Europe is much bigger than the one in USA, and it already watches way more Euroleague than NBA already, probably by about 5 to 1 at least already.

You do realize that a gigantic TV market in Europe would be available to watch the games in Europe right? Or do you think the entire TV viewing world only exists in the USA?

Also, believe it or not, there are many many clubs in Europe with enormous amounts of money. Not just Barca and Real. Do you actually believe that Prokhorov was the ONLY rich owner in the entire continent of Europe?

There are tons of clubs in Europe with billions upon billions of dollars.

Americans are so obsessed with USA being the center of the universe that they cannot even grasp reality. Europe is a bigger TV market, bigger sports market, it's a bigger population, it has bigger and richer clubs (with far bigger fan bases), none of what you are saying even makes sense.

The only obstacle to this would simply be the NBA deciding to do it. Financially, Europe is ahead in every single way and NBA would make more money in Europe.

The obstacle would be NBA American owners blocking it over fear they could never ever compete with the much much much richer owners in Europe.

And remember how European sports culture is...........there is no such things as a salary cap and it would never be allowed under EU law. So the teams in Europe and the owners in Europe could spend whatever they wanted to. And the big time owners in Europe are all Mark Cuban types, only most of them have way more money than he does.

BS. Give a link a it is just another one of your many many lies.

[kurt_rambis]

BS. Give a link a it is just another one of your many many lies.
it's probably technically true. what he doesn't mention is that nba games are usually on in the middle of the night in europe, so obviously less people are watching

[CanYouDigIt]

When did Euroscrub get banned? :roll:

[gabepizza]

it's probably technically true. what he doesn't mention is that nba games are usually on in the middle of the night in europe, so obviously less people are watching

5 to 1? I find that hard to believe. The NBA is big in Europe even because of the time difference and these days everyone has satelite

[KyleKong]

What the NBA should do to attract fans from Europe is by sending 4 to 6 teams to Europe for about a week maybe two weeks and play against each other in London, Paris, etc.

Just like what the NFL does in London every year.

Silver has got to be bat shit crazy if anyone thinks that players would want to travel back and forth across the World for their careers.

[kurt_rambis]

5 to 1? I find that hard to believe. The NBA is big in Europe even because of the time difference and these days everyone has satelite
it would depend on the country and what teams are playing, but 5 to 1 isn't as crazy as it seems. euroleague games are often transmitted in primetime and on broadcast tv. nba games are on at 2am on satellite. so comparing them is useless and it doesn't tell you anything about the popularity of the nba in europe

[Jameerthefear]

Euroleague is banned! Thank you Jeff <3