Morel: 'NBA is a global sport'

Already, the NBA have held pre-season matches in Berlin, whilst regular season matches have also been taken to other parts of Europe. Germany is a fruitful market for the organization with the second highest number of subscribers to 'League Pass' - a digital package to have access-all-areas and full match content - and with a German-language site partnership on Spox.de.

Of the top 10 European markets for the NBA, the seven language websites have been viewed 175 million times in December with 9.2 million unique visitors. More than 44% of the 73 million-plus YouTube views are from European fans.

With offices in London, Johannesburg and Madrid, the Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) base, opened in 1993, is as important as ever for the NBA.

To learn more about NBA's ambitions, DW met Benjamin Morel, who is overseeing the execution of this project as NBA's Senior Vice President and Managing Director of EMEA operations.

DW: What sells NBA to Europe when the continent is such a sport-saturated market?

Benjamin Morel: The NBA over the last 20 years has become a true global brand and there are a few reasons of that. Firstly, Basketball is a global sport - some people identify basketball as an American sport, but it's not. It's played around the world; it's part of every school curriculum in every key country.

Over 500 million people play the sport, so contrary to the other US Sports leagues, we don't have an agenda to export. You have to develop it - so that more and more people bounce the ball rather than kick it. So it's a development priority, but not to export a culture that people don't get. We benefit from the universality of the sport, and we also benefit from the fact we've got a global planet.

Now, over 100 players come from outside the U.S. - that's actually 20 per cent of the rosters, which is massive. So all of a sudden, rather than being a distant myth, you connect with people and make more opportunities for those aged 12, eight or nine. You know that making NBA is a real reality.

Then we've got our players and teams, our great competition, so that is the basis of what we do.

Do so many international players, like Dirk Nowitzki of Germany for example, form a new connection with young fans and give them a role model to emulate?

Specifically in Germany, the fan base is extremely knowledgeable: it's about Dirk Nowitzki, it's about Dennis Schroder, the Atlanta Hawks, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Kevin Durant and so there is not just local players, but global icons. I think basketball has an advantage because the players are so accessible. If you're on the court, you see them; they're so recognizable and so marketable. We promote them as true icons for today's youth. It's not just us: it's their sponsors, our sponsors marketing them, as well.

How important is digital in connecting with fans across the globe?

There's going to be a very small percentage of our fans that actually one day enjoy a live game in the USA. Our broadcasts, but most importantly, our digital is critical. Our fans are tech-savvy, trendsetters, they are very digital focused so it's a bit of an advertizers dream when you look at our fan base, which is great for us, of course.

When you look at our sponsors and partners, we help to get them to a target audience. At the same time, it's a challenge for us because they're more and more demanding. They want access 24/7 and they want whatever content they want, whenever they want.

That's a difficultly probably 10-15 years ago, but now with the digitalization of the world, with social media - we were the first sport to be present on YouTube. Now we are the No.1 sports channel on there with 2.56 billion views and nearly half of that comes from Europe. Because the time-slots are challenging for those who don't experience it regularly, YouTube is perfect for us.

Digital is key - but we've got other things. We've got merchandizing, fashion apparel but also it's very important that we bring the live NBA experience to the market. We can't do that every year but we've had three pre-season games in Germany over the last six years; the O2 Arena in Berlin is a great place to showcase what we are.

Over the last few years, the domestic league in Germany has strengthened. How do you show that the NBA isn't a competitor?

Everything that's good for NBA will be good local basketball, and vice versa. We're wishing each other success here, so I don't think there's any sense of competition here, especially for the fans. The more NBA fans attending local leagues, the better it is for the sport. It could make them more loyal to the sport. There's been huge development in the sport recently. We work very closely with basketball stakeholders like Euro League.

Our relationship is very good and it's never been better than it is today.