As the NBA continues to promote and advance its global image, there’d be no better way of expanding the league than to bring it to places that have never seen North American professional sports up close.
The home stretch of the 2025-26 NBA season is in full swing, with action resuming on Thursday following the 2026 All-Star Game, a notable one that saw the league mix up its format in an effort to win over more viewers.
While the 2026 Winter Olympics have garnered most of the sports world’s attention in the past couple of weeks, this year’s NBA All-Star Game was viewed by many as a massive improvement over formats used in previous years.
Instead of the archaic East vs. West games of the past and the player-centric yet uninteresting player-drafted teams of more recent years, the NBA chose to tout its global popularity and stature with a “USA vs. World” game – pitting the league’s finest American stars against its international titans.
The change was not without precedent, as the league hasn’t seen an American player win the NBA MVP award since I was a senior in college, when James Harden captured the award in 2017-18. The league’s stars from outside the U.S. have made basketball more of a global game than ever before, a trend that doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon.
Although a USA vs. World All-Star Game is certainly a definitive step towards creating a more globally branded league, it’s hard to get more intentional than to simply play regular season games outside of North America – something the league has done plenty of in the past, but could certainly use more of in this new era.
As of 2026, the NBA has played regular season games in Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, while NBA preseason games have also been played in the Bahamas, Spain, the Dominican Republic, China, Italy, Taiwan, Philippines, Brazil, India and the United Arab Emirates. The league has also played preseason games in the territories of Puerto Rico and Macau.
Yet in this new era, there are still a plethora of locations the NBA could play games in and do a great favor to a local audience, both expanding popularity in a new region while aiming to inspire a new generation of global basketball stars.
With regular season games planned in Manchester and Paris for next season, here’s a look at three cities that are perhaps a bit more under-the-radar that would serve as ideal locations for NBA regular season games in the future:
1. Warsaw, Poland
While the NBA has made their way into Western Europe in recent years, some of the league’s biggest names have hailed from the eastern side of the continent – none bigger than Nikola Jokić and Luka Dončić, of Serbia and Slovenia respectively.
Though it would be quite the logistical leap for the NBA to play games in Belgrade or Ljubljana, the league could meet eastern European fans in the middle by playing a game in Warsaw, Poland’s capital and largest city.
In addition to providing more relative proximity for some Eastern European fans, Warsaw also serves as a ripe market full of basketball potential itself, as the NBA would love to add to the mere four players born in Poland that have played in the league throughout its 80-year history. Twelve-year veteran Marcin Gortat was the most recent Polish-born player to play in the NBA, having retired after the 2018-19 season.
Beyond the promise of expanding the sport and league in one of Europe’s forgotten metropolises, there is of course also a very large Polish American population – with games in Warsaw having the potential to inspire plenty of tourism on the American side as well.
2. Nairobi, Kenya
While the expansion of the NBA’s image and popularity has been a global effort, it’s hard to find a place where the mission has been more apparent than in Africa, where the league has helped to establish the Basketball Africa League while greatly increasing outreach to the continent on social media in recent years.
Yet no North American professional sports league has taken the leap to play games in Africa, but the opportunity is more than there for the taking for the NBA.
While Dakar, Lagos, Addis Ababa and any of the major South African cities serve as fitting candidates, I landed on Nairobi, Kenya as the best locale in Africa for the NBA to take a trial run with regular season games.
Already home to a BAL team while boasting a population of approximately 6.1 million people, Nairobi’s status as one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the continent make for especially favorable conditions to reach the most amount of people for the league, especially with the assumption that the league would fund festivities and other events around the city to mark the occasion.
Though it’s an extreme longshot to ever see an NBA team be based anywhere overseas, let alone in Africa, playing games in Nairobi can help make the league visible for millions of fans who are currently unable to see elite NBA-level action with their own eyes.
3. Perth, Australia
While MLB has already played regular season games in Australia, with two games being played at the Sydney Cricket Grounds in March 2014, the NBA could use a trip to the land down under as well – this time utilizing a different city.
The NBA already holds an existing connection with Australia, with the country producing several notable names for the league over the years, including Kyrie Irving, Joe Ingles, Ben Simmons, Patty Mills and Josh Giddey.
Although much of the attention on Australia centers around the more eastern cities of Sydney, Gold Coast and Melbourne, the league also has plenty of untapped potential in the country’s lone western metropolis and one of the most remote large cities on the planet in Perth.
With a population of just under 2.4 million, Perth’s remote location doesn’t at all hamper its massive size and cultural impact within Australia, with its diversity and reputation as a globally connected city only aiding in the league’s effort to expand the game to new audiences.
Beyond Perth’s large size and significant diaspora communities from India, South Africa, Malaysia and the Philippines, the city has also been largely neglected by global entities when considering Australia – as Perth is often an afterthought for major festivals, concert tours and yes, sports leagues as well.
NBA games in Perth could offer plenty to gain for everyone – a unique experience to a place that many likely wouldn’t travel to for American players and fans, while providing a chance to see some of the world’s best basketball players in a city that almost always gets put on the back burner within its country.
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