NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is "hopeful the league can soon increase the number of regular-season games played overseas," but warned Brexit has left Britain's place in the league's plans "uncertain," according to the London TELEGRAPH. The Indiana Pacers faced the Denver Nuggets at London's O2 Arena on Thursday evening, the seventh regular-season game played in the capital since '11. But where the NFL has "steadily increased the number of games played" in the U.K. each year, with four to be staged in London in '17, the NBA has "only once played more than one game per season" in London. The league's "intensive schedule of 82 games per team has been to blame." But the new Collective Bargaining Agreement -- due to come into force for next season -- "offers more flexibility with an additional week allowed to play the same number of regular-season games." Silver: "We wish we could do more of these games but it's not easy because our schedule is so dense. (The new CBA) gives us some more days to play with in the schedule, and that might make bringing some additional teams over here and doing some kind of round-robin tournament more possible." However, Silver added that the "primary purpose of the schedule change was to factor in more rest for players in a bid to reduce injury." He admitted the Brexit vote "has created uncertainty over the future -- with the concerns not purely economic." Silver said of Brexit's possible ramifications, "We have studied it a lot and we still don't know the answer. It's unclear to us what impact it will have and my sense is, from talking to our many partners back in the United States, it remains unclear to them as well" (TELEGRAPH, 1/12). The BBC reported Silver has "admitted uncertainty over Brexit" and the U.K.'s future outside the European Union makes it "hard to predict London's chances of getting a franchise." He said, "I have been following Brexit but what it would mean in terms of placing a franchise in England I do not know." In '07, previous NBA Commissioner David Stern suggested there will "ultimately" be an NBA franchise in London one day. Last June, Britain voted in a referendum to leave the EU by 52% to 48% (BBC, 1/11).
BRITISH HOOPS AT CROSSROADS: In London, Alan Smith reported from an "external vantage point, basketball in Britain appears more popular than ever." It is the fourth-most played team sport in the country, ahead of cricket and "not far behind" rugby union, and the second-most popular among teenagers after football. The NBA returned on Thursday for its "now annual gathering, with courtside tickets changing hands" for more than £1,000 ($1,216), and a "long-term ambition remains for a permanent franchise to be based in London." Yet "for all that positivity," the elite level in the U.K. has been "floundering." The British Basketball League is "rebounding" from what one source described as "a low ebb," and the national team cannot select its strongest players because UK Sport has denied British Basketball funding, "meaning that the governing body is so cash-strapped that it is unable to insure its biggest stars." Burgeoning at grassroots level "but struggling at the opposite end of the spectrum, the sport is at a crossroads and unsure where to turn." The British league "bears no grudge towards the NBA for encroaching on its territory -- if anything it is the opposite." Average crowds at regular-season games are close to 1,000, "though there is optimism among the league’s hierarchy after recent broadcast agreements with the BBC and Perform." However, BBL Commercial Dir Bob Hope said, "To develop, we need cash to come into the league." BBL club Newcastle Eagles Managing Dir Paul Blake said that the league’s "long-term struggles -- financially and in terms of exposure -- are a result of the collapse of ITV Digital, its main broadcasting partner," in '02 (LONDON TIMES, 1/12).
