The league has backed and built basketball courts throughout communities and neighborhoods across India, from Nagpada in Mumbai:
A core part of the N.B.A.’s expansion strategy in India is increasing grass-roots participation, based on the belief that people who play basketball are also more likely to follow the N.B.A. The league also knows that the more Indians who play basketball, the more likely it is that one day an Indian player will be good enough to make the leap to the N.B.A. — an event that could vastly expand the league’s popularity in the world’s second-most-populous nation.
The Basketball Federation of India, the sport’s governing body, estimates that 4.5 million Indians play the game. That is a fraction of the country’s 1.2 billion people, but Ueberroth said the N.B.A. suspected the real number was much higher because the federation’s statistics missed players who did not belong to a league.
To try to accelerate basketball’s growth, the N.B.A. dispatched Troy Justice to India in February to serve as its first director of basketball operations in the country. Justice helps run the N.B.A. Mahindra Challenge, a series of youth leagues and tournaments in five Indian cities.
“The kids here have the natural ability and the talent, but they are not given the opportunity to develop it,” he said.
In addition to Justice, the league sent the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers’ Pau Gasol on short ambassadorial missions to Mumbai and Delhi in the summer. It also sent two coaches to India to train the men’s and women’s national teams ahead of November’s Asian Games in China. It has created an India-specific portion of NBA.com, featuring postings by two Indian bloggers.
Viewership for the N.B.A. in India has also been rising quickly, but from such a low base that it remains minuscule, said Atul Pande, the chief executive of Ten Sports, which has contracted to broadcast Eastern Conference games. Pande said he thought the audience for a live N.B.A. game would never exceed 200,000 households. The viewership for many I.P.L. cricket matches is in the tens of millions.
