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After years of putting its NBA House in coveted international markets during the playoffs, the league is turning each of those houses into a home.
The NBA held its first NBA House sports marketing initiative in London for the 2012 Olympics and has taken the party around the globe in years since. For this year’s NBA Finals, the league will be hosting sprawling activations in Calgary, Mexico City, Mumbai, and São Paulo, featuring game viewing parties, mascots, dance teams, live music, meet-and-greets with former NBA players, photos with the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the league’s champion, skills challenges, and stores stocked with league merchandise.
With subscriptions and total watch hours on NBA League Pass globally increasing 4% and 6% respectively, compared to last season, and global partnerships revenue increasing for the fifth-straight season, the NBA is focused on markets where its growth has been particularly promising.
“For us, 99% of our fans will not have an opportunity to see an NBA game in an NBA arena in North America, so one of the things that we’re very focused on is: ‘How do we bring authentic NBA experiences to life to our fans around the world?’” said Kelly Flatow, the NBA’s evp of global events. “There’s certainly an opportunity to bounce a ball and shoot some hoops, but also to be able to broaden that, tap into, and bring to our fans what they love about the brand, and that’s about fashion, music, technology, and lifestyle.”
Back in December 2023, YouGov released a survey attempting to determine the global footprint of sports leagues from the United States. In the U.S., the National Basketball Association had 25% of those surveyed say that the league was among their top interests or that they were somewhat interested in it. That share rose to 27% in Canada, 30% in Mexico, 30% in India, and 31% in Brazil.
Canada already has a Hall of Fame NBA player in Steve Nash and an NBA title from the 2018 Toronto Raptors, but it’s also produced the most non-U.S. players in the league for 11 straight years. This year, 21 Canadians opened the season on NBA rosters—including the Oklahoma City Thunder star and the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Brazil has had players in the NBA since the New York Knicks took a young Nenê Hilario, later known as Nenê, in the 2002 NBA Draft, with Gui Santos coming off the bench to help the Golden State Warriors during their latest playoff push. Rio de Janeiro even hosted a preseason game between the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards in 2013.
“Since we have done games and different kinds of life experiences around the globe, we learn from each other, and we find those commonalities with the fans,” said Raul Zarraga, svp and head of operations for NBA LATAM. “The common factor is the passion for the NBA, [but] they experience it in different ways.”
Mexico City, however, is an old friend of the league, hosting its first NBA preseason game in 1992 and its first regular-season game in 1997. Overall, the city has hosted 13 regular-season NBA matchups since 2014 and is such a regular fixture that it’s already a TBA on next season’s calendar. Mumbai hosted a pair of NBA games in 2019, and the NBA has used personalities, including Kevin Durant and Ranveer Singh, and initiatives, including a Project Runway-style fashion program, to stoke the love of both the league’s game and its culture in different corners of India.
The NBA started its year with 125 international players on its roster, had players from three non-U.S. countries (Canada, Serbia, and Greece) vying for league MVP, and finished its season with players from five nations leading it per-game in points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals. It realizes that if it wants to connect with the fans those players are attracting, it has to find ways to celebrate the NBA’s biggest moments on their home court.
“In Mumbai, where basketball is still in early stages of fandom and growth, it’s really about expanding our fan base and bringing people that have maybe a peripheral interest in basketball, but they’re interested in music, lifestyle, culture, these other elements that the NBA brand overlaps with,” said Rajah Chaudhry, NBA head of strategy, Asia Pac, and NBA India country head. “It’s our first year in Mumbai, so we’re doing it as a smaller, two-day event, but hopefully over the years we can make it as big as, say, Brazil, which runs for a few weeks now.”
Spreading the floor
The São Paulo NBA House from June 5-22 at Villa-Lobos State Park marks the league’s seventh playoff visit to Brazil—2024, 2023, 2022, and 2019 in São Paulo; 2020 virtually; and 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. After last year’s installment drew more than 45,000 fans, brands including Budweiser, Emirates, Hellmann’s, Sadia, Sportingbet, and XP have jumped on to support the 2025 iteration.
“It’s a continuous experience through all the different days that are not only about watching the Finals, but also about experiencing a unique moment for friends and family and meeting influencers, content creators, and celebrities during this two and a half week event with activities every single day,” Zarraga said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of experience you would like to have: We found in NBA House a great opportunity for fans to enjoy it any way they want.”
Brazil keeps rewarding the NBA for its efforts, with more than 59 million Brazilian NBA fans shopping at 32 NBA Stores in the country, making it the league’s No. 1 brick-and-mortar destination in the world. That doesn’t include Brazil’s NBA Store Truck—the league’s only mobile store on the planet—or ecommerce platform LojaNBA.com. Brazilian fans have also given the league a massive media presence through ESPN Brasil, Disney+, Prime Video, the NBA Brazil YouTube Channel, and NBA League Pass.
After 13 years promoting its product in India, the NBA is looking for the same kind of wins from a similarly diverse approach. The first-ever BUDX NBA House takes place June 7 and 8 in Mumbai with guest appearances by five-time NBA champion Derek Fisher, Hall of Famer Gary Payton, and the Sacramento Kings mascot, dunk teams, and dance teams. Budweiser, Brand USA, Emirates, and Visit California are among the brands attempting to connect with the NBA’s more than 6.5 million fans on social media in India, where the league is still making inroads through a broadcast deal with YouTube and a youth basketball development program.
“I will say it’s challenging: The time zone in India is always a bit of a challenge for us, [and] unfortunately, the games are on pretty early in the morning,” Chaudhry said. “Something like an NBA House here helps us to connect those dots. You’ve got your core fans who are going to get up early and watch a game. Maybe not everyone’s going to do that, so this gives them that opportunity to touch and feel what the NBA brand stands for and come at a more friendly time.”
Closer to home
After making its Canadian debut in Vancouver last year, NBA House comes to Calgary from June 5-8 at The Rooftop YYC. Three-time NBA champion Danny Green and 2010 NBA champion Metta World Peace will be in the building, as will activations from brand partners Gatorade, Hennessy, Hisense, Michelob Ultra, and Mitchell & Ness.
The NBA placed the Raptors in Toronto (and the now-Memphis Grizzlies in Vancouver, to lesser effect) 30 years ago. Today, the NBA’s Canadian presence is up to a record 183 million views on the league’s Canadian social channels this season. The league has also developed 676,000 fans in Calgary’s Alberta province alone, the third most in Canada behind Ontario and Quebec.
“In Canada, with the team there, and now with a WNBA team [the Toronto Tempo, which arrive in 2026], it’s a combination of maximizing the interest of the fan base to know more and to enjoy more NBA than ever and the fact that the people are looking for this,” Zarraga said.
NBA House is also returning for the second-straight year to Mexico City, where it’s taking over the Fórum Hipódromo de las Américas for Game 4 of the Finals on June 13 and 14. Coming off of last year’s Mexico City game between the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards in November, the NBA has taken notice that more than 40% of its fans in Mexico (roughly 13 million people) are Gen Z and driving the more than 5.6 million follows on the NBA’s social media accounts there.
“Doing fan events around the world is not new for us, but that is something that, throughout time, we’ve continued to go back to listen to what our fans want,” Flatow said. “We have organized ourselves to be a fan-first business so that we can deliver what is our global standard, but be able to then customize locally what is most relevant to a fan in Mumbai and what’s most attractive to a fan in Mexico City.”
