As expected, the American Dream Team basketball players secured the Olympic victory. The big question for the near future is how much the NBA will push into other parts of the world in its endless hunt for capital and influence.
LeBron James and the US basketball players were unbeatable in Paris too.
Kyle Terada / USA TODAY Sports
The USA basketball team in Paris, which won gold on Saturday evening with a 98-87 victory over France, comprises 12 players. The triumph will be rewarded with $37,500 per athlete by the American Olympic Committee, but money was certainly not the driving force behind these men’s summer adventure in Europe. The dozen NBA stars have so far earned a total of $2.5 billion in salary income. That is more than the gross domestic product of the Central African Republic with its 5.5 million inhabitants.
The Americans were the overwhelming favorites before this tournament, as they have been at every Olympic Games since 1992, when the “Dream Team” terminology was born in Barcelona. They only missed out on gold in Athens in 2004, and the then 19-year-old LeBron James said afterwards: “We had great players. But no structure.”
Now, 20 years later, James was back with a greying beard. Again, his team saw defensive work as optional. But apart from the semi-final against Serbia, which they won at the last minute, the Americans were not seriously challenged in any game. The comeback was mainly thanks to the now 36-year-old but tireless long-range shooter Stephen Curry from the Golden State Warriors. And thanks to Joel Embiid.
Embiid only started playing basketball at the age of 15 – five years later he was a millionaire
Embiid, 30 years old, was born in Cameroon but also has American and French passports. Out of hurt pride, the most French of all emotions, Embiid was booed almost non-stop in the Olympic final – the hosts had hoped that he would play for France. Embiid made a name for himself as a cool avenger and played a major role in winning the title.
Embiid has a fascinating life story, he only started playing basketball at the age of 15. His rise must exceed the imagination of the armada of wealthy American parents who send their children to camps with professional trainers at ridiculous prices even at preschool age. Embiid will earn 51.415 million dollars in the NBA season that begins in October. Plus ten million from sponsorship contracts.
Joel Embiid made himself unpopular in France.
Kyle Terada / Usa Today Sports
He is a global luminary and, although he now plays for the USA, a kind of symbol for the internationalization of the NBA. Almost a quarter of the professionals were not born in America. There are now also several European superstars; they come from Greece (Giannis Antetokounmpo), Slovenia (Luka Doncic), Serbia (Nikola Jokic) or France (Victor Wembanyama).
The development is being followed very closely at the NBA headquarters in New York. A few days before the Olympics kick off in Paris, league commissioner Adam Silver signed a new media rights contract that will bring in 76 billion dollars over eleven years starting in 2025. The league and its obscenely rich team owners hardly know what to do with the mammon, the money vaults are so full.
But of course that doesn’t stop them from thinking of additional sources of income, including with a view to Europe. So far, the NBA has been content with sending two teams to the old continent once a year to attract a bit of attention. But the portal “The Athletic” reported a few days ago about internal NBA discussions that a new European league could be founded in the medium term together with the world association FIBA.
There is no need for American development aid, it has never worked – in 2007, for example, the highly loss-making football league “NFL Europe” was discontinued. In basketball, the “EuroLeague” already exists, an attractive continental super league with teams from nine nations and managed by local decision-makers who actually understand their markets. In Switzerland, this may not be realized due to a lack of media presence and no TV deal, but the league is thriving: the average audience in the 2023/24 season was more than 10,000 per match, and its appeal extends from Athens to Berlin and Munich to Tel Aviv.
The NBA’s African league experiment has so far been one thing above all else: a million-dollar waste
The decision-makers of Europe’s top clubs are also likely to look with skepticism towards Africa, where the NBA launched the “Basketball Africa League” (BAL) with great fanfare in 2019 and hired former US President Barack Obama as a “strategic advisor”.
According to reports from Bloomberg, the league will lose a whopping $17 million in the 2024 fiscal year. An NBA court exported to Senegal was eaten away by termites during transport. The Dynamo Basketball Club team from Burundi was excluded from league operations in March after refusing to wear “Visit Rwanda” patches on their jerseys. Rwanda is one of the BAL’s financiers; the NBA is in cahoots with Paul Kagame’s regime.
These are episodes where warning lights are flashing. The EuroLeague licenses expire in two years, and there are talks about extending them for twenty years. A speedy conclusion without NBA influence would be a strong signal that European basketball is doing quite well without American tentacles.
