No NBA Game in Europe Next Year According to Adam Silver

The NBA has been keen in recent seasons to spread the word and push their brand across the world. One effective way to do so has been to play NBA regular season matches overseas, but it appears that any plans to do so again in the near future have been put on hold.

The last time an NBA game was played in Europe was back on January 24th, 2020, a game that saw the Charlotte Hornets defeat the Milwaukee Bucks in Paris at the AccorHotels Arena.

There has initially been some resistance to hosting regular-season games outside the US, perhaps some teams felt that losing home advantage would affect their odds, the latest of which can be found at https://www.sidelines.io/nba/odds. However, the pushback against such games was successfully overcome, and for nine seasons straight, the 02 Arena in London hosted a game, but seemingly this is coming to an end.

Also, Mexico City had regularly hosted regular-season games, the last of which came in December 2019 when the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Phoenix Suns in overtime.

Fortunately, that doesn’t mean that fans in Europe won’t get to see their favorite players up close and in the flesh as there are moves to play more pre-season games outside of the United States.

The growing success of Slovenian star Luka Doncic has raised the chances of his homeland playing host to the Dallas Cowboys, and it should be noted that Abu Dhabi will be the location for two further pre-season games, set to take place in October.

NBA’s league commissioner Adam Silver is planning a fair few changes ahead of next season, one of which would involve an ‘in season’ competition, citing the success of the ‘play-in’ tournament that first came about due to the Orlando Bubble that was created due to the coronavirus pandemic back in 2020.

“I’m more pleased with the Play-In today than I thought we would be when we were first adopting it,” Silver stated.

“Related to that, to me, in terms of trying new things, then does it make sense to look at some other concepts we’ve talked about, like an in-season tournament,”

Silver said. “In some ways, the players have been more receptive to the possibility of an in-season tournament because the Play-In has been a bit more successful.”

The NBA, much like other household leagues with rich histories, are sometimes not keen on change (just look at the way many within the NFL reacted to the addition of a single game last year), and it’s true that making alterations to the fabric of the league shouldn’t be done just for the sake of it (or for increasing revenues), sometimes change is good.

The NBA is, of course, celebrating its 75th anniversary, and this may be the right time to think about ways to revolutionize the game; and with that in mind, the move to playing regular-season games in Europe (or beyond) may still be something that should be considered in the long-term.