Sep 18, 2008 | 11:00 PM | NBA European Division by 2018?

by: Paul Miles

ESPN looked at 14 possible expansion cities for the NBA's next decade. There are some good looking towns, and some real dogs in this bunch.

First the American cities ESPN put out there. The sentimental favorite in this field is Seattle. The Sonics skipping town for flatter pastures ripped the team from their beloved pacific northwest home. There is plenty of reason to place a new team (which by all accounts would be called the Sonics) back in Seattle. Typically for a Washington state team, the complaint is always with travel. However, the TrailBlazers take some of the heat off those long road trips. And Seattle is a proven basketball market. Seattle should definitely be brought back into the league.

Professional leagues have flirted with Las Vegas for years. And with the population boom of the last couple years, it's grown into a big-time town. Dognahy-gate aside, Las Vegas is a big enough city to support multiple professional franchises. Between local residents, and the tourist trade, I would expect their new arena to be sold out nightly. There's your second Western Conference expansion team.

In the Midwest St. Louis and Kansas City are both mentioned as darkhorses. St. Louis is a baseball town first, a football town second. Try competing with the Blues and the Budweiser brewery. A tough sell to say the least. Kansas City arguably already has a professional basketball team in the Jayhawks, playing 50 miles away in Lawrence. But Kansas is the heart of basketball country, and it seems almost unnatural for Kansas to not have a pro team. Almost like if you took the Pacers out of Indianapolis. A sentimental favorite, and with the 17,000 seat Sprint center vacant, the lure may be enough for David Stern.

Mexico City is always thrown in there. But is it economically feasible to run a team in Mexico that competes will play 41 games in the United States or Canada? The NHL years ago saw a mass exodus from Canada into the US because of operating costs. This was when the Canadian dollar traded at C$1 to US$0.70. With Mexico's economy, can they trade on the same terms as the New York Knicks and LA Lakers? Probably not. It's a huge city, but it's a poor country. You'd be better to look back into Ontario and see what's going on in Ottawa.

The other two cities mentioned are Anahiem and Newark. Both live in the shadows of the world's largest TV markets (Los Angeles and New York City). Both would be third teams in a metro area. Both teams would be the third wheel on a scooter ment for two.

The real coup of the article is the possible expansion of the NBA to Europe in the next decade.

Several cities were mentioned. Starting with London. London's the popular choice because hey! They speak English in England! However, the Great Britian vs Czech Republic clash drew just 2300 fans in what was a very dramatic story line involving the Olympics, NBA-er Luol Deng, and some very spirited play from young British players like Nate Reinking. England isn't even on the EuroLeague map, and hasn't been for some time. So can an NBA team in England, who would have assumably absorb some trans-Atlantic travel expenses be able to compete in the world's top basketball competition? Let's wait until they can compete in Europe's top basketball competition before they ask that of them.

Berlin presents several interesting problems. First, besides Dirk Nowitzki, who speaks German? But aside from that, and this is a problem most of the more appealing European cities will face, there's already a team in Berlin. Can the city support their domestic league team, Alba, and an NBA franchise?

Same question to be asked of cities like Madrid, Rome and Moscow. In Athens, you double the problem with fans already pledging dying allegiance to either Olympiacos or Panthiakos.

The answer isn't to expand the NBA into Europe. The European basketball scene can't support two and three teams in their top basketball cities, just like the United States can't support two or three teams in most of it's top cities. The answer is simple. Merge with the EuroLeague. Expand the EuroLeague from 24 to 30 teams, close the circuit (as they are planning), and get teams in those top-tier cities like London.

The key to the deal would be the media rights. Bring European basketball to the American audience through a TV deal with ESPN, or a turn NBA.tv into a service similar to MLB.tv.

Bring the top European players to the USA only for the All-Star Game and the play-offs. It should be a history occasion every time the London Tigers, or Olympiacos comes to the US to play the Knicks or the Celtics.

There are a couple reasons for this. First, the airfare to bring a team from Europe over here for a series of away games is prohibitive. We saw in the NBL the Singapore Slingers were forced to withdraw from the league for that very reason. Secondly, I still feel that only the top 1% of European teams can hang with the NBA at this point. CSKA and Maccabi TA can swing with the top NBA squads. But Armani Jeans Milan?

The most important reason, though. The money generated by a CSKA Mosow vs Los Angeles Lakers 7 game Finals series would be astronomical. Why ruin that by forcing CSKA to run a series of games through the US during the regular season? And speaking of the regular season, if the NBA continues it's tradition of having every team play every other team at least twice, then each EuroLeague team would play 60 games against NBA teams. How would that work into an 82 game schedule?

I have a lot of faith in David Stern's Global Ambition. But articles like this make me very conerned that Stern's putting the cart before the horse on the Europe issue.

Labels: euroleague, globalization, nba

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