Jones in London: It’s a small world

When you talk about basketball and have those three magic letters, NBA, in front, it attracts people’s attention – even across the pond where soccer is king.

In the land of footy, Saturday’s game between the Toronto Raptors and the New Jersey Nets is sold out and Friday’s game was just short of that when the teams arrived. It’s expected however, that the joint will be at full capacity when they tip it off to start the game.

Whether the “poobahs” at the networks in Canada want to admit it or not, basketball is growing. It may not be selling big in terms of advertising yet, but with a new generation growing up on hoops, basketball will get its time in the spotlight at some point in the future. It may be a matter of just waiting until everyone’s on board. Trust me, it’s there and when everybody gets with the program, things will change

The question is: Where is the rest of the world in the total globalization of the game? NBA merchandise is huge all over the globe. Yao Ming gave China one of their own in the NBA and names like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady are also big in China which is proof that other continents have a thirst for the game.

As witnessed here in London with the gathering of media around the international players like Andrea Bargnani, Leandro Barbosa and Jose Calderon of Toronto as well as the Nets’ Johan Petro and Sasha Vujacic, the international community is smitten with the NBA. The exposure these players have in both NBA and international competitions only serves to fuel that fire.

So could there be a European conference in the NBA? Possibly at some time in the future and just think what it would do for true globalization. European fans love their basketball. Mind you it’s not soccer, the same way it’s not hockey in Canada, but its there. With the purse strings becoming tighter in Europe for many club teams, maybe the NBA is closer than you think. Is it inconceivable to have a Euro conference with teams in places like London, Paris, Munich, Rome and Madrid? There would be logistical challenges with the travel and scheduling and while there is no perfect solution, never put it past the NBA to figure something out. Of course, from this chair, I would LOVE to see them come back to Vancouver first, but that’s a personal bias.

There are people that argue the other side saying that economically, the value of one franchise would be prohibitive to have any sort of European expansion unless you had major corporate money behind a team and right now, soccer is dominating the landscape.

If there was a European conference, it would certainly be a double-edged sword as it would help one league and hurt the other. Similar to the way early entry into the NBA has had a detrimental impact on the NCAA game, club basketball in Europe would suffer as the best players would gravitate to the NBA. But if the writing is on the wall for club teams overseas and diminishing funds then it begs the question, is the NBA in Europe an answer?

It was interesting to hear Raptor assistant Alex English discuss the idea of European expansion and you can hear his thought toward the end of this interview.