More than ever, the future of basketball in the NBA is being written in French. For the first time in the history of the American professional league, three “Frenchies” were chosen in the top ten during the 2024 draft – the recruitment day for future players.
Better still, the two French players Zaccharie Risacher and Alexandre Sarr were selected in the first two places, making France the only country outside the United States to achieve this feat. Enough to arouse the “enormous pride” of Victor Wembanyama, the star of French basketball, also recruited in first position a year earlier.
A huge spotlight from which the very young Paris Basketball club hopes to benefit. “We have a fantastic opportunity for French basketball,” its president and co-owner, the American David Khan, enthuses to “Echos”. Likewise, he judges, “all eyes will be on France this summer [à l’occasion des Jeux Olympiques, NDLR] while Victor Wembanyama will play for the first time with the French selection.”
An important Parisian market
So how does the capital club, founded just six years ago, intend to take advantage of this sudden exposure? “There is no sport, at European level, where there is such a huge gap between its cultural relevance and the commercial revenue it generates,” says David Khan, for whom “this is set to change” in the coming years.
Paris Basketball believes it is particularly well placed to benefit from this. Both on a sporting level and on an economic level. Despite a smaller budget at the start of the 2023-2024 season (9.2 million euros) than the two other big locomotives, Tony Parker’s Asvel (21 million) and AS Monaco Basket (27.5 million ), the Parisian club finished finalist in the Playoffs of the Betclic Elite, the French first division.
He even established himself on the continental scene by winning the Eurocup, allowing him to qualify directly for the EuroLeague. Paris Basketball confirmed, on June 17, its participation in the closed league, the most important European competition. The opportunity to expose its brand while European basketball, such as the NBA and the LNB (the French professional league organizing Betclic Elite), are increasingly interested in the potential represented by the Parisian market.
We are the Paris team
David Khan Patron du Paris Basketball
“Having a team in Paris, inside the ring road, with an exclusive contract with the Adidas Arena, will forever put us in a very advantageous position,” says David Khan. “We are the team of Paris.”
For the manager, the Parisian market is “the most important consumer market in Europe” in terms of population, brands with which to collaborate and even tourism. Above all, basketball and its entire culture (jerseys, sneakers, derivative products, etc.) are very represented there.
So much opportunity to grow the Paris Basketball brand, like that of PSG in football. “It’s an easy observation to share,” confirms to “Echos” Jean-François Brocard, researcher at the Limoges Center for Sports Law and Economics (CDES), especially since “it’s been a long time since There hasn’t been a good basketball team in Paris.
“There are a lot of practitioners in Ile-de-France and a lot of potential public,” he admits. You still have to be able to attract them to the gym or show them the sport. Basketball is still closely followed by insiders, believes the researcher. The dispute between the two French broadcasters, La channel L’Equipe and the streaming platform Skweek, has not helped. “It’s very frustrating,” admits David Khan, but as a club we have no control over that.
141,000 spectators
The manager prefers to focus on what he can control, such as numbers. Driven by its new hall, much larger than the Halle Carpentier where he played before, and with state-of-the-art infrastructure, for players as well as for the public and VIPs, the club has almost doubled its number of spectators to 141,000 for the 2023-2024 season, compared to 74,000 the previous season.
Better yet, Paris Basketball saw its average attendance increase from 1,900 people per match at the Halle Carpentier to 5,100 at the Adidas Arena (+270%). He even played sold out five times during the year, including the last two Playoff final matches.
7.2 million euros
This is the operating income of Paris Basket for the 2023-2024 season
Financially, several indicators are also in the green: the club’s operating income for last season came to 7.2 million euros, compared to 3.8 million a year earlier. That is an increase of 89%, to be compared with an average increase of 10% in operating income for all 16 clubs, according to the trend observed by the LNB before the final closing of the accounts. Paris Basketball also collected 4 million euros from ticket sales and hospitality over the season (+154% over one year) and 1.78 million euros via its partnerships (+44%).
However, the road is still long to become the benchmark basketball brand in France, recognizes David Khan. But, the leader insists, as the American proverb says: “Sky is the limit”.
2024-06-29 17:02:11
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