Associating Internationally : An alternative strategy for NBA overseas expansion

Slovenia, Haiti, New Zealand : Players from each of these nations made NBA Opening Night rosters in 2013. 39 countries provided a record 92 international players to start the league’s season.⁽¹⁾ America’s pro league has long welcomed stars from abroad to play the game James Naismith invented here. NBA teams have played games against international hosts since 1978, and the Hawks will play the Nets in London next week.⁽²⁾

That ongoing dedication to maintaining an international presence no doubt led respondents to place the basketball league second in a Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal poll on which U.S. league would become the first to place a team outside North America.⁽³⁾ So, in our third of series of posts related to the poll, we ask how might the NBA go about placing a representative in the land of Yao Ming, or Dirk Nowitzki, or Šarūnas Marčiulionis?

Incoming commissioner Adam Silver has suggested he likes the concept of overseas franchises,⁽⁴⁾ but the schedule looms as an enormous obstacle. Travelling for 82 games within the United States already drains the players. How attractive would free agents find signing with the Rome Legion or the Tokyo Green Pheasants if they knew 41 of those games involved trans-oceanic travel? The jet lag alone for a short playoff series might end the experiment.

Other issues include displacing club teams already established in areas where basketball enjoys popularity, a dearth of NBA-appropriate arenas, and possible security concerns.

Someday, the bottom could drop out of domestic TV rights and second-, third-, and fourth-screen use could diminish live game attendance to the point where staging an 82-game season in one country no longer makes sense. The NBA would then perhaps find it in the league’s interest to split the year between two or even three continents. Perhaps a team plays 40 games in the U.S., then plays 21 in their European city and another 21 in their Asian city.  You’d still have to deal with how the teams already in those areas accommodate it, but maybe the Boston Celtics becoming the Glasgow Celtics becoming the Seoul Celtics triples your TV audience? Playoffs and the overly pessimistic economics make this scenario an unlikely one, certainly. However, the league already owns a property with the necessary attributes. If it wants to exponentially elevate its brand presence across the waters, perhaps it should start with the WNBA.

The NBA’s women’s league doesn’t play 82 games. The regular season consists of 34 summer contests, plus up to 11 more in the playoffs.  A number of American female pros also play in more than just the WNBA, as they travel overseas to spend the winter season with European or Asian club teams.

There they play a domestic league schedule consisting of 20-some games. The best teams may also play a dozen or more games in Euroleague or Eurocup inter-country competitions. Many of the clubs, especially in Europe, have histories a lot longer than that of the WNBA. Women pros played abroad before the American league existed and have continued to do so to supplement their capped WNBA salaries.

Could the WNBA partner with existing clubs, perhaps starting with the top flight ones in the biggest women’s hoops countries (like Russia, Turkey, Spain, and Italy)? The WNBA’s brand would provide cachet, especially with international sponsors, and the clubs’ brands would provide tradition. They could brand the venture as the WNBA’s winter season, with the stateside campaign branded as the summer season. 

The NBA would get to strengthen its brand and the relationships that could streamline future moves on the men’s side. In turn, the WNBA could potentially help many clubs professionalize their operations, getting them up to Association standards. This assistance could prove critical to the survival of some, or even many clubs. Subsidies provided by wealthy owners and state federations may not have the staying power they once did⁽⁵⁾ and clubs will have to maximize revenues to remain viable. Revenue generation is something the NBA does well.

Could the NBA's marketing minds offer suggestions to make European scoreboard shows more compelling?

American star players traveling abroad to play have often made outsized salaries provided by hobbyist team owners. Standardization of labor standards under the WNBA model could encounter resistance from these women and their agents. They would have to agree that the merged model represented the best hope for professional women’s basketball to remain sustainable over the long run. NBA marketing muscle generating additional ancillary revenue for them in the form of merchandise sales might assist in bringing them around. Another selling point could be that synchronizing the schedules would help the players avoid overlap between seasons and perhaps build in some time off they don’t currently get.

The NBA, of course, would have to convince itself that taking its brand worldwide mattered enough to justify the sizable expense and hassle a regular WNBA presence abroad would require to set up and then maintain. Can the benefits in exposure and sales of branded products outweigh the costs of doing business internationally? They would need a business plan even longer than this blog post to evaluate all the permutations.

For instance, should the WNBA choose to integrate with Asia or with Europe? Could they play one off the other in negotiations? Europe has a more established hoops culture but Asia has incredible growth potential. It is possible they could go to both continents. American players already go both places and perhaps a winter season championship could pit an Asian titlist against the Euroleague winner. Speaking of the Euroleague, FIBA would have to get involved at some point. The NBA would hopefully convince world basketball’s governing body of the mergers’ merits.

We do know the NBA men can’t play more games abroad without disrupting the league’s domestic business, at least in the short term. The WNBA, however, might make its league and its sport healthier by doing so.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

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Footnotes

⁽¹⁾ “NBA Tips Off 2013-14 Season With Record International Player Presence,” nba.com. http://www.nba.com/global/nba_tips_off_201314_season_with_record_international_presence_2013_10_29.html (accessed January 6, 2014).

⁽²⁾ “History of the NBA Global Games,” nba.com. http://www.nba.com/global/games2013/all-time-international-game-list.html (accessed January 6, 2014).

⁽³⁾ “Reader Survey,” Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal. November 25-December 1, 2013. P.26.

⁽⁴⁾ Larry Fine, “NBA Commissioner-in-waiting eyes global expansion,” Reuters. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-28/sports/sns-rt-us-nba-silverbre92s006-20130328_1_adam-silver-national-basketball-association-nba-teams (accessed January 7, 2014).

⁽⁵⁾ James Bowman, “The state of the WNBA: 2012 edition,” Swish Appeal. http://www.swishappeal.com/2012/12/28/3812448/the-state-of-the-wnba-2012-edition (accessed January 7, 2014).