Stern meets with officials about 5 expansion euro teams

[mardigan]

On espn. com, met with Vlade Divac Real Madrids new diector of b-ball operations and Real V.P. Jose Sanchez about adding a new division with 5 teams. He met with them before the 76ers game. No decisions yet and Stern said there would have to be new arenas built, but also says that it has always been a dream of his. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2614550

[Mr.Bottomtooth]

Cool.

[cornbread]

sweet

[boutons_]

London? WTF? how many English players in NBA? Do Brits even have a pro bball league?

No Paris? WTF? how many French players in NBA? France has lot of pro teams.

[boutons_]

the article doesn't say how NA and Euro teams would handle scheduling problems, just saying that scheduling would be no problem

how would scheduling work? seems that the jetlag would be a serious additional burden to teams already clapped the out by mid April

[Phenomanul]

the article doesn't say how NA and Euro teams would handle scheduling problems, just saying that scheduling would be no problem

how would scheduling work? seems that the jetlag would be a serious additional burden to teams already clapped the out by mid April

Maybe the league would have to purchase a fleet of at least 8 supersonic jets like the retired Concorde for travel across the Atlantic.

[timvp]

Only thing that makes sense to me is if the NBA moves half the D-League teams to Europe or something like that. Putting actual NBA teams in Europe doesn't really strike me as something that can happen. The travel would be killer and if players don't want to go to Canada, imagine what would happen if they are traded to Moscow.

[j-6]

What about setting up a NBA-style mirror league in Europe? Same rules, salary cap restrictions, etc.

[Bruno]

the article doesn't say how NA and Euro teams would handle scheduling problems, just saying that scheduling would be no problem

how would scheduling work? seems that the jetlag would be a serious additional burden to teams already clapped the out by mid April

Scheduling won't really be a problem.
if there are 5 nba teams in europe :
- Teams in USA will just have to do a 5 games road trip in europe at a moment in the season.
- Teams in europe can do something like 3 10-games road trip in USA.

Some work should be done on playoff format.

The biggest problem will be that players will have to agree to play in europe. Cities that get a nba franchise must be well chosen : I can see Madrid, London or Paris with a nba franchise but not Moscow.

I can see the interest for the nba : France + Germany + Spain + Italy + great britain => a potential of 300 million consumers.