{"id":348863,"date":"2025-12-16T12:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/348863\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T12:20:12","slug":"nba-sponsorship-lead-on-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/348863\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA sponsorship lead on Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite their popularity in the U.S., the powers behind professional football and basketball haven\u2019t always succeeded in overseas exports. The National Basketball Association (NBA) reportedly hopes to change that record<\/a>. It\u2019s seeking to capitalize on the spiking popularity of basketball in Europe by launching a 16-team division of the league on the Continent by 2027, spanning Rome, Milan and Athens.<\/p>\n

In order to build a sustainable beachhead, however, the NBA will look to brands and sponsorship revenue. Which is where David Brody, vp, global partner management group lead at the NBA, comes in. He\u2019s tasked with pitching advertisers to become regional and global partners of the NBA, offering its access to enormous audiences and the chance to sculpt the game of basketball as it evolves.<\/p>\n

In this conversation. Brody, who is based in New York, explained the NBA\u2019s strategy to draw in sponsors, how it\u2019s meeting their expectations, and how it can seize the moment in Europe.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n

The momentum around basketball in Europe is at an all time high right now. Basketball is the second most popular sport in all of Europe, second only behind [soccer].<\/p>\n

This year, on [the NBA season] opening night, we had 135 players born outside the United States; that\u2019s roughly a third of our league, [and] about half come from Europe. You\u2019re talking about the biggest stars of the game: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luca Don\u010di\u0107, Nikola Joki\u0107. In his third season, Victor Wembanyama has already led to the highest TV viewership that we\u2019ve ever seen in France, and he was the quickest player ever to surpass 1 billion views on the NBA\u2019s social media channels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you can see that your hometown hero is now a superstar on the biggest stage in the world, that is a massive catalyst for growth within our game. Europe\u2019s time has come on the world stage, and I think that all leads to the incredible momentum that we\u2019re seeing on the continent.<\/p>\n

Is that demand enough to support a European extension of the NBA?<\/p>\n

The NBA is a global culture phenomenon. You can\u2019t underscore just how important the culture aspect is to the commercial area of the business. You don\u2019t have to look far into music, film, fashion, arts, technology to see an NBA player front and center.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m sitting down with brands\u2026 they want to talk about three things. One is where we sit in culture. Two, this unmatched, unparalleled global audience. And three, [that it\u2019s] a young, multicultural, diverse, tech savvy audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s tremendous opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Would this mean importing the NBA\u2019s American business model to Europe?<\/p>\n

We have 17 offices around the world. I think we\u2019re unique in the sports landscape in terms of that kind of commitment to having boots on the ground in local markets. In our London office, we have over 100 employees who wake up every single day thinking about the fact that the basketball experience there is different from where it is in the United States.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[For example] I lead our global partnership with Anheuser Busch. They were the first-ever official global beer partner of the NBA. Michelob Ultra is the brand they activate with on a global basis, but we work with our teams around the world to bring to life different brands such as Budweiser in India or Castle Light in Africa, or Harbin in China.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What can the NBA offer a European brand that they can\u2019t get from another sports property?<\/p>\n

What we hear from them is [that] they see the incredible innovation happening with our sport. If you look at the last several years, we\u2019ve unveiled in-season tournaments and play-in tournaments. Our partners want to be with us on that journey by co-creating with us from the ground up. If you\u2019re a partner of the NBA, often you have an early inside look at what are new innovations, what are new programs and concepts we\u2019re thinking about for the future.<\/p>\n

Our partners want to be a part of that. We have an opportunity to do something really special together to enhance the fan experience. [For example] when we announced our 10 year extension with [Swiss watch brand] Tissot, we also announced that as part of that, Tissot will present an NBA game in Europe for the next 10 years. It\u2019s a massive commitment. They\u2019re also our official timekeeper, actually tied to the partnership renewal. We unveiled new shot clocks this season; they\u2019re circular, actually closely reflecting a Tissot watch. They literally control the timing and scoring system that runs our games on a nightly business.<\/p>\n

I mentioned earlier my oversight of our partnership with Anheuser Busch. Anheuser Busch became a partner of the NBA in 1998 and for the first 25 years of that partnership, they were focused on working with us in the U.S. That changed in 2023 because they, like many other brands, saw what\u2019s happening in our business around the world.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re playing six games in Europe over three years. We\u2019re going to play two regular season games this January in Germany, it\u2019s going to be a huge moment. [In 2027], we\u2019re going to Manchester and Paris; the year after that Paris and Berlin. When we make commitments like that, the brands we work with have an opportunity: they want to get in, with planning early on because of the ability to be a part of something special and unique.<\/p>\n

Do you have specific commercial targets going into next year?<\/p>\n

The metrics and targets that we have are for internal purposes only. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m able to share anything, but what I would say is we continue to be focused on the continued growth and trajectory of the business, which has been very positive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite their popularity in the U.S., the powers behind professional football and basketball haven\u2019t always succeeded in overseas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,97478,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-348863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-marketing-in-sports","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}