Nba Outside The Us

By Author: Sarah James
Total Articles: 16
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In 1932 the International Basketball Federation was formed by the eight following nations: Greece, Latvia, Romania, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Czechoslovakia and Argentina. During the beginning the organization only managed amateur players. The letters FIBA comes from the French words Fèdèration Internationale de Basketball Amateur. In 1986 the word 'amateur' was eliminated as there became no dissimilarity between professionals and amateurs. Although FIBA name of the organization remains the same.

The NBA has a high popularity outside of the United States and was the first of the professional sports league of the United States to propose international web sites for their fans. Matthew J. Brabants the vice president of the NBA stated that they weren't trying to compete with cricket, but if we can make waves in a country with more than a billion people like India, that would be a wonderful accomplishment.

Difficult economic periods in the United States makes it ever more vital for sports leagues, like Major League Baseball and the NBA to develop outside of the United States for expansion. Throughout the ...
... recession, profits declined because of lower ticket prices, and the fans attendance was 2% lower at the NBA games.

However, hard work to entice fans internationally are paying off. NBA's merchandise business international sales were up 35%, and that percentage is projected to rise another 30% this year. Over half the NBA.com website visitors are from outside the USA, that's more than all the other sports league. NBA.com/China is holding a 7.5 million web visitor turnover throughout the finals. That's about one-third of the total traffic to the website. The finals have become an international phenomena with reporting transmitted live to more international websites, stations and other avenues in 215 countries and providences in 41 languages.

Another goal for the NBA is to take advantage of expanding interest in Africa. The first office of the NBA in Africa was opened in Johannesburg recently to encourage huge basketball events and increase NBA partnerships through media, marketing and fan based product companies. Other plans include opening offices in Russia, Brazil and India. The Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California's executive director David Carter stated that the original and true goal is to make the NBA a global league. With so many new technologies to stream live games over the world wide web, on mobile equipment and movie theatres it looks like the NBA is on its way to becoming a number one sport all over the world.

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