Prior to Adam Silver taking the helm as commissioner of the National Basketball Association, his predecessor David Stern, had plans for taking the league to a global audience.
While the NBA has continued on that path of global brand expansion and exposure, Silver is mulling over the idea of setting up an entire league in India which would be a clear step in the direction Stern envisioned.
According to ESPN, the only drawback to starting a league in India is arena infrastructure up to the NBA’s standards. The Sacramento Kings and Indiana Pacers played the first-ever NBA game in India on Friday and just before tipoff Adam Silver remarked on the facility and his future outlook for a league in India:
“I think this is where [Sacramento Kings owner] Vivek [Ranadive] was a little ahead of the schedule that we might otherwise have been on. This is a fantastic facility we’re in today, but it required us bringing in a court, a scoreboard, seats, locker rooms. And it’s relatively small, certainly by NBA standards. […] I have had some interesting discussions with developers over the last two days here. I think it’s inevitable that there will be state-of-the-art arenas in major cities in India, in part because these are multi-use facilities and live entertainment is increasingly important here as well. Of course, a great arena can have concerts and other shows. But we do need to see those arenas over time in order to play more games.”