HONG KONG AND SINGAPORE — The National Basketball Association (NBA) yesterday announced that the league will expand its presence in Asia-Pacific by opening an office in Singapore.
The Singapore office joins the league’s Manila and Mumbai offices in reporting into NBA Asia Managing Director Scott Levy based in Hong Kong and will expand the league’s existing efforts in the region, which include live game distribution, youth development programming, interactive fan events, merchandise sales and social responsibility efforts.
“Over the past two decades, Asia-Pacific has proven to be a major growth region for the NBA,” said Levy. “Opening an office in Singapore reflects the enormous opportunities to build on that positive momentum by working more closely with our valued partners and bringing our passionate fans in the region closer to their favorite NBA teams and players.”
NBA games and programming reach fans in the region through the league’s 20 media partners that span 11 countries and territories and eight languages. NBA League Pass — the league’s premium live game subscription service – has recorded double-digit subscriber growth in the region over the last three seasons. The league also has more than 35 million followers on social media across the region.
The NBA has staged 17 preseason and regular-season games in the region, most recently in 2019 when the Houston Rockets and Toronto Raptors played two preseason games in Tokyo, Japan, and the Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings played two preseason games in Mumbai, India, which marked the first games that teams from a North American sports league played in India. In 2013, the Rockets and Indiana Pacers played a preseason game in Manila, Philippines.
Since 2007, the NBA has engaged more than 40 million boys and girls across the region through the Jr. NBA, the league’s global youth basketball program. The Jr. NBA Coaches Academy — the NBA’s train-the-trainers initiative that aims to further local development by establishing standards for how the sport should be coached – has reached more than 88,000 teachers across seven countries regionwide.
With the opening of the Singapore office, the NBA now has offices in 15 markets worldwide: Beijing, Dakar, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Lagos, London, Madrid, Manila, Mexico City, Mumbai, New York/New Jersey, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Singapore and Toronto.