NBA to hold regular season games in England
The New Jersey Nets and the Toronto Raptors will be making NBA history next year. They will be playing two regular season games in the O2 Arena in London, England. The games will be played on March 4th and 5th in 2011.
NBA Commissioner David Stern says that they are fulfilling their commitment to schedule a regular season game in the UK before the Olympics in 2012.
The New Jersey Nets have played in England before in a different series called NBA Europe Live. This will be the first time the Toronto Raptors will ever play in England.
Basketball popularity has doubled since the NBA has started bringing teams to Europe. The NBA started bringing teams to Europe 20 years ago, but have never had a game that was part of the regular season played there. They have had many sold out games since they started bringing the games to Europe. These games will help basketball progress in the community.
The NBA began holding games overseas in 1990. The New Jersey Nets will be playing games in China next year as part of the NBA’s objective to globalize basketball. There are many fans overseas, this could be a trend starting that proves basketball is not just for Americans.
