NBA Cup to include international basketball teams? Here’s what NBA executive says about expansion
The NBA Cup was started in 2023. NBA’s Executive Vice President of Basketball Strategy, Evan Wasch, recently held meeting with international media agencies to discuss how to expand by bringing in international basketball teams.
The NBA Cup is contemplating expansion with the inclusion of international basketball teams in a bid to catch the international market. Having started in 2023, the NBA Cup has already posed several questions for fans but the league showed faith and trusted the process at the moment.
NBA’s Executive Vice President of Basketball Strategy, Evan Wasch, held a meeting with the international media agencies and emphasised on the growing side of the league so far.
“For the group play this year, the seven group play nights of those 14 games were 7% higher on average than non-group play games in the window. So, it’s showing that there’s some sort of elevated interest in the Cup games," Wasch said.
“They were slightly down from last year, which I think part of it was some of the injury issues, player absences, maybe some blowouts in some of those games. There’s always going to be present, but we’re still seeing really strong performance for those games, especially when looked at compared to other non-Cup games so far this season.
Another major area that was floated in the meeting was the fan engagement with more internationla teams, so to bring variety for the supporters.
“On the international piece, yes, we’ve been actively engaged with FIBA and other stakeholders in Europe about potential opportunities to grow basketball further with high-level competition in Europe, and we think there’s a tremendous opportunity there," Wasch stated.
“If we were to do that, you could also envision down-the-line competitions between NBA teams and teams around the world," he added.
Wasch also mentioned that they are looking to make changes (big and small) in the NBA Cup and will continue to play with the format in the future.
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Business NewsSportsNBA Cup to include international basketball teams? Here’s what NBA executive says about expansion
First Published:14 Dec 2024, 07:13 AM IST
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