Victor Wembanyama (32), of France dunks during a men’s gold medal basketball game at Bercy Arena at the Paris Olympics 2024, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
PARIS — Fiba secretary general Andreas Zagklis has toured Intuit Dome, the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers and the venue selected as the site for basketball at the 2028 Summer Olympics.
He was impressed. And that’s a promising sign for the next Olympics, now that a record-setting Paris Games are in the books.
“Everybody speaks about it in the most complimentary terms,” Zagklis said Sunday at his end-of-Olympics news conference before the women’s gold-medal game between the U.S. and France. He toured the Intuit Dome site when construction was still underway as part of his duties as a member of the International Olympic Committee’s coordination commission for LA 2028.
READ: Team USA holds off France for 5th straight Olympic basketball gold
“This is an arena that has been designed for the fans, for the experience of the fans,” Zagklis said. “So, I think, I expect excellent images and top-level experience for our players.”
The Clippers start play at Intuit Dome this coming season; the opening game will be announced later this week when the NBA releases the schedule for the 2024-25 season.
The first event at the $2 billion arena is set to take place Thursday — a Bruno Mars concert.
Also of note: The building will have a generic name for the Olympics because corporate names are almost always not permitted by IOC rules. For example, Accor Arena, the official name of the venue where basketball was played in the Paris neighborhood of Bercy, went by Bercy Arena during the Games.
NBA plan for Europe
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told The Associated Press earlier this month that the league is ramping up talks with Fiba on how to best increase its competitive footprint in Europe either through an annual tournament or an NBA-operated league.
Zagklis confirmed the talks have been happening, noting that the NBA and FIBA have had a relationship for 35 years now and that it’s only been getting stronger.
“It is natural for us to have discussions on a new project on broadening our cooperation in either new continents or other areas of our sport, recognizing that what one does best is commercializing basketball at the very top in the (NBA) and what the other does best — that’s us — is developing the sport across 212 countries,” Zagklis said. “There are, indeed, continuous discussions.”
READ: Team USA escapes France for 8th straight women’s basketball gold
Silver said the league doesn’t have specifics yet, and Fiba doesn’t either.
“Our vision is to unite and grow,” Zagklis said. “We’ve been trying very hard in Europe to unite the family and grow the sport.”
The NBA first played an exhibition in Europe in 1984 and has been sending teams there regularly for either preseason or regular-season games since 1993. San Antonio — featuring French star Victor Wembanyama — will play Indiana in Paris twice in January, the first time that two NBA teams will play back-to-back regular-season games in Europe against one another.
Attendance record at Paris Olympics
Team USA’s LeBron James (6) celebrates after beating France to win the gold medal during a men’s gold medal basketball game at Bercy Arena at the Paris Olympics 2024, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Helped by the ability to put 27,000 fans in the building at Lille that played host to the group stage of the men’s and women’s tournaments, the Paris Olympics set a record for attendance, Zagklis said.
The 1996 Atlanta Games had about 1.068 million fans in 92 games. The Paris Games will finish at about 1.08 million fans in 52 games.
Fiba saw average attendance for group-phase games of about 22,000, up wildly from the average of about 3,000 at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
READ: Wembanyama puts stamp in first Olympics as France takes silver
“The numbers are staggering and show the growth of our sport, both on the men’s and women’s side,” Zagklis said.
He also said ratings have been strong, and there was a five-year high for searches of “basketball” on Google during the games. “The engagement has been fantastic,” he said.
Salute to Fernandez, Taurasi
The Paris Games were the sixth — and presumably the last — for a pair of Olympic basketball greats, Rudy Fernandez from Spain and Diana Taurasi from the U.S.
No other Olympian has appeared in six basketball tournaments. Unprompted, Zagklis said he wanted to salute both of them “for achieving a record that is remarkable.”
“They deserve our recognition and admiration,” Zagklis said. “And I’m sure not only their younger teammates in the locker room but many young people in their countries are inspired by the two of them.”
READ: Diana Taurasi wins record 6th Olympic basketball gold
Lauding Africa’s accomplishments
Nigeria’s women became the first team from Africa to make the quarterfinals of an Olympic tournament, and South Sudan’s men were one of the big stories of the Games — nearly making it to the knockout stage themselves.
This is what Fiba wants: more growth of the game on a global stage.
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“It was a big first for Africa, one we have been waiting on for quite some time,” Zagklis said.