{"id":662212,"date":"2025-12-30T09:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662212\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:58:15","slug":"o2-arena-open-to-hosting-nba-europe-after-record-breaking-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662212\/","title":{"rendered":"O2 Arena open to hosting NBA Europe after record-breaking year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tTuesday 30 December 2025 8:00 am<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tWednesday 24 December 2025 11:42 am\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tShare<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"social-share__popup-item\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tFacebook\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on Facebook\n\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li class=\"social-share__popup-item\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tX\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on Twitter\n\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li class=\"social-share__popup-item\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tLinkedIn\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on LinkedIn\n\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li class=\"social-share__popup-item\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tWhatsApp\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on WhatsApp\n\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li class=\"social-share__popup-item\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tEmail\t\t\t\t\t\tShare on Email\n\t\t\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img width=\"742\" height=\"495\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2200386037-e1766574427417.jpg\" class=\"media \" alt=\"GettyImages 2200386037 showing a diverse group of business professionals in a modern office setting discussing strategic p...\" fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"sync\"  \/>\t\tO2 Arena could host NBA Europe after owners day they have the space\t<\/p>\n<p>The owners of London\u2019s O2 Arena have insisted they have enough days in their calendar to host a NBA Europe franchise in the capital should the league launch in 2027.<\/p>\n<p>The US basketball league is exploring the possibility of setting up a European equivalent, tapping into major football club brands this side of the pond. Both London and Manchester have been cited as franchise hubs, with each city also hosting US NBA matches over the next two years.<\/p>\n<p>Comments from O2 Arena owner <a href=\"https:\/\/aegeurope.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AEG Europe\u2019s<\/a> Gael Caselli came as the 20,000-capacity venue revealed a record-breaking year, with nearly 3m tickets sold for events at the Greenwich Peninsula site.<\/p>\n<p>2025 saw a total of around 11m visitors to the arena, with 239 performances across the year. And it means there\u2019s 126 spare days to exploit going forward.<\/p>\n<p>O2 Arena for NBA Europe?<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[NBA back in London] been a pretty long negotiation in the making but the idea now is a three-year plan in Europe, where they\u2019re going to be playing two games a year in 2027 and 2028 across three different countries \u2013 the UK, France and Germany,\u201d Caselli said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been at the epicenter of that negotiation for quite a while now and the O2 is going to get a game in January. But the Uber Arena in Berlin, which is an AEG venue, and Accor Arena in Paris, which is an AEG affiliated venue, are getting games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[NBA Europe] is a very exciting project. We\u2019ll have to monitor the situation and see who\u2019s actually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityam.com\/nba-europe-plans-advance-for-league-with-london-and-manchester-teams\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">getting the London franchise<\/a> but [being booked for] 239 days means we still have a few left to make it up to 365.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure our programming team and booking team will be pushing a lot and moving dates around to make sure we can host as many games as possible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are too many unanswered questions about the league itself but we\u2019ll definitely look at it and be very interested in the project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The O2 Arena will host the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityam.com\/exclusive-nba-europe-to-woo-sponsors-at-swanky-london-summit-next-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Memphis Grizzlies\u2019 regular season home game against Orlando Magic<\/a> in late January after the NBA took a six-year hiatus from the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Its return, combined with the match in Manchester in 2027, is expected to contribute \u00a3100m to the UK economy.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cityam.com\/exclusive-nba-europe-to-woo-sponsors-at-swanky-london-summit-next-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Exclusive: NBA Europe to woo sponsors at swanky London summit next month<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\tSimilarly tagged content: <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tSections\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tCategories\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tPeople &amp; Organisations\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tRelated Topics\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday 30 December 2025 8:00 am \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0Updated:\u00a0 Wednesday 24 December 2025 11:42 am Share Facebook Share on Facebook&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[202363,202364,12048,51,2000,299,5187,12056,132461,12,101247,93,131586],"class_list":{"0":"post-662212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-aeg","9":"tag-aeg-europe","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-basketball","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-o2-arena","19":"tag-sport","20":"tag-sport-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115807931818586342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}