The program can now be heard on on Spotifythat is On Apple Podcaststhe On Google Podcastson the other major podcast platforms, and here, in the player embedded in the article:
The podcast covered, among other topics, the following:
Once again, the NBA is extremely popular all over the world, as shown by the viewership statistics, the user numbers, and the business numbers of the teams. The North American professional basketball league reaches 1.5 billion people globally. According to Balázs Tőrös, the reason for the international popularity is, among other things, that the sport is becoming more and more international, there are more and more foreign players in the league, some who are decisive, just think of the European stars, such as the Serbian Nikola Jokić, the Slovenian Luka Dončić, or the Greek Giannis Antetokounmpo.
According to the NBA expert, it’s here to the rise in popularity of American basketball most recently, the Netflix series The Last Dance (Hungarian: Michael Jordan – Az ésáles champaionki) contributed, which is a docu-series that explores the history of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. We also talked with the host of SportTV about the NBA’s fiasco in China, as a result of which the league lost roughly half a billion dollars and the relationship was only able to settle after a long time. Meanwhile, this case has highlighted the importance, stability and potential customer base of Europe.
The podcast was about about basket cards as an investment, because there is huge money in this. According to the NBA expert, this activity is a kind of art collection, but many people already see these cards as escape currency. You have to watch the exchange rate of the players, just like on the stock market. For example, someone who bought into the cards of Dallas Mavericks star Luka Dončić in his rookie year was able to achieve a 600 percent portfolio increase in roughly 2 years. In the podcast, Bazska also talked about who has the largest collection of Dávid Kornél cards (the first and so far the only Hungarian basketball player playing in the NBA), at the same time, he expresses his unsparing opinion on sneaker hype.
The central topic of the conversation was the NBA as a business. In this regard, the expert explained that the American basketball league is, with a slight exaggeration, different in everything from any European championship or European sport. The NBA thinks much more in terms of leagues, because the goal is for the entire league to be successful, not just individual teams. Another very important goal of the league is to maintain parity, that is, to equalize the chances between the teams as much as possible.
In that sense, this is a golden age in the NBA right now. In the last 5 years, 5 different champions have been inaugurated
– said Bazska, with whom we talked about the salary cap, the players’ salaries, the penalty tax and its importance. As salaries add up, the league has implemented a luxury tax cap. If the team achieves this, a penalty of 50 cents must be paid for every dollar spent. And this tool has a long history. Above a certain limit, the penalty is already 1 dollar for every additional 1 dollar spent, and then comes the so-called repeater tax, at the end of which a 300-400% tax is imposed on the teams that significantly exceed the luxury tax limit – he explained. Despite all this, it was clear that the owners of the teams accepted this burden, but changes in this area can also be expected in the future.
The numbers are amazing: it is worth owning an NBA team on an annual basis, as in 2022, 29 of the 30 teams will have generated an annual profit – the presenter stated on the broadcast, who also highlighted that the valuation of NBA teams is also climbing very nicely. Recently, certain parts of the team’s business have changed hands, such as Michael Jordan’s majority ownership in the Charlotte Hornets.
In addition to all of this, they discussed this season’s winner, whether there is a proven recipe for winning the playoffs, and what parallels there are between a successful, professionally managed basketball team and a business.
