[Yahoo! Sports] European expansion by: Kenny Smith

Tinman and Kenny: The love affair continues...

 

Looks like this idea is getting another look by Stern:

Link

Report: NBA is considering European division

The NBA is exploring an expansion initiative in Europe that includes a new five-team European division in the league, SI.com reported Wednesday.

The current plan would involve creating five full-fledged NBA franchises in Europe over the next decade, a source told the website. The teams would play a full 82-game schedule and compete for the NBA championship.

Commissioner David Stern is expected to discuss the initiative at a news conference Saturday in New Orleans. The timing coincides with the annual meeting of international basketball officials and the NBA, which is held during the All-Star weekend.

The idea of expansion abroad first was floated by Stern in 2003. Since then, the league has focused on building international partnerships, including NBA China. ​

 

Disaster, disaster, disaster, disaster.

Be smarter about it and export the Developmental League over there first. Have the All-Star game in Paris. Test the waters.

If they do this, they deserve all the failure coming their way.

And they're looking to expand the league to 35 teams? Are they delusional???

Evan

 

haha i enjoyed that as well... always seemed like a cool guy the few times i talked to him at his store back in the day at first colony mall..kenny smiths pro image

 

The Owners would never agree to this unless those euro teams were based in the US. Teams like the Bobcats and Hawks would go broke paying airfares.

 

Flight times would definitely be an issue, but I think it could be worked out - teams wouldn't be flying back and forth all the time, but it would be like ONE or at most two trips to Europe and back - you play twice against each of the 5 or 6 teams, and that's it. Something like 5 divisions of 6 teams could work - you'd play twice against any team, and more times against the teams in your own division.

Playoffs would be a head-scratcher, though.

 

By the way, I'm throwing my hat in the ring to be the owner/GM of the...

Munich Monsters
Munich Oktoberfestlers
Munich Maniacs
Bavarian Beasts

...

 

So short-sighted.

Beyond the idiotic dilution of talent, travel nightmares, and having games come on at inconvenient hours of the day over here for most of your fanbase:

How many drafted Euros wouldn't want to return home to their countries' teams after their rookie contract is over, leaving the American team holding the bag? Or better yet, the Euro draft choices just tell several American teams ahead of them not to bother drafting them at all.

Taxation differences which doomed Canadian franchises might be even more problematic with each European country possibly having wildly different tax structures. With the dollar plummeting overseas, a five year contract to a player on a Euro team might have only half the buying power in that country at the end of the contract compared to the beginning.

The ethnic mixture that comprise numerous NBA teams would decrease as foreign players return home to their teams. I enjoy having Yao and Scola on the team. I liked V-Span here until he wore out his welcome. The other Texas teams similarly enjoy their internationals. The diversity makes teams more interesting, and fans would be cheated out of some of this.

Plus, where does it stop? What about China? Turkey? Argentina? Africa and Australia? The more areas you expand to, the problems become much worse. Yeah, let's do a 50-team league in five continents, almost every time zone, with one home game each against every team, and a 100-game schedule.

Idiotic.

Change for the sake of change = idiotic. Just like the new ball fiasco.

 

Parallel Leagues
They play . . and then at the end they have a Super Bowl type thing
The only time the meet . . [and preseason]

Or . . Replace the WNBA with it . .a summer league type thing

Rocket River
Europe . . . here we come!

 

are you ****ing kidding me? you're comparing london or paris to salt lake city??? I'm guessing you've never been to europe. basically playing in any major city over there will be like lebron playing in New York City. The marketing possibilities are endless. You talk about LA and NY like they're holy grails but any of the euro cities they'd expand to are just as big as those 2 cities and bigger than any other market in the US... not to mention the rest of each country that would support the teams. You know how the Cowboys are "mexico's team" imgaine that on a larger scale for Paris, Berlin, Barcelona etc.

plus if you've ever been to Amsterdam or other european cities, there's an untouched wilderness of HOT naturally blonde super white women over there untouched by NBA, NFL etc that right there is enough to convince most of these dudes to play over there.

the biggest question is whether europeans would go watch the NBA... it's the same problem the NFL had... football is actually decently popular in europe but no one wanted to actually pay and go watch games. outside of certain countries like croatia and **** europeans dont really ****ing like basketball or consider it a real sport. consider what dirk says he thought about basketball growing up... he thought it was a sport for girls that his sister played... it's dubious whether europe would be willing to support stern and the NBA

 

so many variables to think about. would be fun just see if it would work. wouldnt impact me too much personally.

hell go for it