Globalization in the NBA

Globalization of the NBA as always been a vision of NBA commissioner David Stern. No league has had more success or has a more involved future with the international market than the NBA. As interbasket.net has recorded, last season a record whopping 84 international players from 38 different countries were on a official NBA roster. In a further point of view, only two of the league’s 30 teams were without at least one foreign player on opening night. In fact international players within the NBA are become a common commodity and can hold their game up to the standard of the NBA. Steve Nash, from Canada, has won 2 MVP awards while Dirk Nowitzki, from Germany, has one MVP award. Financially speaking, globalization has skyrocketed NBA revenues. According to this article, the NBA has made basketball second to the world's most popular sport, soccer. International customers now consist of nearly fifty percent of jersey and merchandise sales. Fifty-three percent of NBA.com traffic is now coming from outside the U.S.. The NBA also has TV deals with over 100 countries and the playoffs along with several regular season games broadcast live across the globe. For example, when the Milwaukee Bucks played the Houston Rockets on Nov. 9, 2007, an audience of over 200 million people viewed the game because Yao Ming went against Yi Jianlian, who are both from China. Commissioner David Stern, along with retired and current NBA stars are raising the interest and awareness of the NBA worldwide. Prolific retired NBA centers, Vlade Divac and Dikembe Mutombo, are strong voices that are sparking interest of NBA game play in their respected homelands. NBA stars such as Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, and Carmelo Anthony are loved in foreign countries which only elevates foreign sales for the NBA.

Ian Thomsen from SI.com said it best, "Stern won't be commissioner when the NBA realizes the profit from his investments. But the short-term benefits have themselves been worthwhile. It is with thanks to Stern that basketball in Argentina, Spain and other nations has so improved that USA Basketball needed to overhaul its own selection and training processes in order to keep up. His Basketball Without Borders initiative has dispatched more than 300 NBA players abroad to work with more than 1,300 young players from at least 100 countries and territories." That right there is the true vision of globalization.

1. What entry barriers do you think the NBA had to go through, if any?
2. With the globalization of the NBA such a success, do you see other leagues following its footsteps?