We want more!
Last week we saw the NBA touchdown in London for the big regular season game between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers. A roaring success – it was obvious it was going to be after the game sold out in just 52 minutes – fans are now calling for the NBA to follow in the footsteps of the NFL and bring more games to Europe.
Sitting down in a press conference before the game at The O2, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver fielded various questions on the 25th anniversary of the NBA hosting games in London, including one about the demand for extra European dates and whether or not more will be added to the schedule.
“We’re considering bringing additional games to Europe,” he explained. “It’s just the logistical challenges for us are so much greater [than the NFL]. Just in bringing these two teams for this one game, both teams stopped playing in the States roughly five days before today. Both teams will have roughly three days off when they get back.
“The issue for those teams is – and this is why we’re so appreciative of them coming – is there are a certain number of days in the schedule, and when you build some buffer around this game in the middle of the season, it requires compressing the schedule in other parts of the season. And the more teams we bring, the more scheduling difficulties we have.”
Continuing, he added: “We would love to do it. This game, as you all know, sold out in less than an hour, and the reason it even took 52 minutes was the limitation of technology in terms of how fast people could enter their credit cards and buy the tickets. We could easily sell out two games, three games, four games.
“The demand is there and the interest is there. It’s really more a question of our schedule and whether we can make it work. It may mean that we look at potentially adding some days to the season. Maybe we should be looking to do some different things with our pre-season and shortening that and adding a few more days to the regular season. I would love to do it, but still, we have the same logistical challenges. We will continue to look at it.”
The demand is there. The NBA is growing in the UK in a big way so it would make sense and it would make a lot of people happy. But it’s true, it could take a toll on the athletes. Hopefully Adam Silver does continue to look at it because the NBA will always be welcome in Europe and we would love to host more games.
