A year ago, I wrote about the results of the Global Sports Salaries Survey, a survey conducted by sportingintelligence.com that revealed the world's best paid teams... in all sports. On its way, the survey also went on the reveal the league's with the highest average salary.
A few weeks ago, the results for the 2011 Global Sports Salaries Survey were revealed - and the results are interesting indeed. Some of the top football, basketball, and even cricket teams in the world are represented from league's like Primera Liga (football), NBA (basketball), and IPL (cricket).
Baseball team New York Yankees of the MLB were the world's best paid team last year, but Spanish footballing duo of Barcelona and Real Madrid have since overtaken them for the top spot.
The richest NBA team is the Los Angeles Lakers, who are fourth in the overall list behind Barca, Madrid, and the Yankees - no surprises there, since the Lakers are not only the most popular team worldwide but also two-time champions. What is surprising, though, are the next three basketball teams on the list - Magic (5), Nuggets (9), and Jazz (11) - I would've expected someone else to be ranked higher. The Celtics come in at 15th on the all teams list.
And about our Indian cricket leagues? Well, they seemed to have fallen far behind. Last year, the Royal Challengers Bangalore of the IPL were 12th on the list. This year, they are still the richest IPL team, but have fallen to 26th.
1. Barcelona (La Liga) 2. Real Madrid (La Liga) 3. New York Yankees (MLB) 4. Los Angeles Lakers (NBA) 5. Orlando Magic (NBA) 6. Chelsea (EPL) 7. Inter Milan (Serie A) 8. Boston Red Sox (MLB) 9. Denver Nuggets (NBA) 10. Manchester City (EPL) 11. Utah Jazz (NBA) 12. Bayern Munich (Bundesliga)
Any more surprises? Barcelona, the leaders, pay an average annual salary per of $7,910,737 per player. Manchester United, one of the most famous teams in football (real football, soccer football), rank 16th. Liverpool are 20th. The two best NBA teams, in terms of record this season, are 42nd (Bulls) and 43rd (Spurs).
The NBA, who crowd the majority of the top half of the top 200, leads as the league with the highest average salary in the world, which is about an average of $4.79 million per year or $92,199 per week, sportingintelligence.com said.
SportingIntelligence also did a survey of global attendances, to mark the best attended outdoor and indoor leagues in the world. Amongst outdoor sports, the top five are the NFL (American Football - USA), Bundesliga (Football - Germany), AFL (Aussie Rules Football - Australia), EPL (Football - England), and MLB (Baseball - USA). India's IPL comes in at 10th. The NBA continues to be the best attended indoor sports league in the world.
The lesson from all this? Sport pays. And basketball is one of the richest. The IPL has shown that it has the lucrative backing to eke a space for itself amongst the top leagues, even though cricket isn't a worldwide sport like football or basketball is. India is just that crazy a market, and it's another sign that maybe, if basketball is marketed the right way, it could have a positive future in India.
Which was one of the most popular teams in the league for the past half a decade? Which team had the best regular season record - by a good margin - for the last two seasons? Which team had fans all across the world wearing their jerseys, watching their games televised week after week live? The team that was considered to be title contenders? Which team was the first to 40 wins last season?
You might know the answer to that. But how about this, here are some more clues: Which team, after losing a couple of players in the offseason, became the first to lose 40 games this season? Which team holds the worst record in the league so far this season, the only one to not reach to double digit victories? It's the same team that is probably the most ignored and unfancied side this year. It's the team, that almost overnight (following a certain 'Decision' on July 8, 2010), lost all of its fanbase.
I'm speaking, of course, of the Cleveland Cavaliers. After a loss to Portland last night, the Cavs have now entered the annals of NBA history, but not in the way they would have liked. The Cavs have now lost 24 straight games, the highest losing streak ever. They are yet to win in 2011, have lost 34 of their last 35 games, and after an average start to the season, now sit at a disgusting 8-43 record.
NBA fans know the back story well by now. Cleveland's own son and number one pick, the darling of the basketball world, and the two-time MVP, LeBron James transformed the Cavs into a force to be reckoned with for the better part of the last decade. And then, with one swift move in the offseason, they were left headless without their best player. James joined the Heat, and less significantly, he was followed there by the Cavs' highest-tenured player, Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Shaquille O'Neal and Delonte West left for greener pastures, literally, to the Celtics.
Everyone expected the Cavs to fall, but did we really think that the fall would've been this hard? Did anyone really think that they would become this bad, this soon? From winning 66 and 61 games the last two seasons, here is a team that is finding it difficult to win 10 games this time around. Is this how bad LeBron's supporting cast was? LeBron was surrounded by the likes of Shaq, Ilgauskas, Mo Williams, Antawn Jamison, Anderson Varejao, Leon Powe, JJ Hickson, Daniel Gibson, Jamario Moon, Anthony Parker, and Jawad Williams last season. All of those players, barring Shaq and Ilgauskas, are still there.
Apart from contending LeBron's, Shaq's, and Big Z's loss, the Cavs lost Varejao to a season-long injury, and Mo Williams has been out injured, too. There squad is now full of nobodies like Christian Eyenga, Manny Harris, and Alonzo Gee.
And still, we never expected them to be this bad.
But honestly, I don't really care about their struggles, personally. I never like the Cavalier franchise, before LeBron joined them, didn't like them during LeBron's tenure, and sure as hell don't care about them too much since he has left.
What infuriates me, however, that LeBron's move away from the Cavs has exposed my least-favourite facet of NBA fans: bandwagonning. How could a team that was loved so ubiquitously be ignored so much simply because a couple of players left? Because basketball has become that kind of a game. Fans focus on stars and not on teams. A year ago, I couldn't walk into a single major adidas store in India without spotting Cavs merchandise next to the usual Celtics/Lakers garb. Now? It's as if the Cavs never existed.
Former Cavs fans: I'm calling out to you specifically. Where are you now? How could you follow a team night in and night out for so many years and them completely forget about them overnight, conveniently taking your support to the South Beach like LeBron to support the Heat? I know the answer to these questions, but it still saddens me.
Looking at NBA fans in India now, a majority support either Celtics or the Lakers. But my question is, would you have cared about, say, the 96-97 Celtics that featured a starting lineup of Brett Szabo, Rick Fox, David Wesley, Antoine Walker, and Eric Williams? What about the 93-94 Lakers, with the excellent starting five of Nick Van Exel, Tony Smith, Vlade Divac, Elden Campbell, and George Lynch? I'm expecting only a few to answer an honest 'yes', and it's understandable. People don't like shit teams. Nobody notices you until you perform well. Or you dunk all over the universe like Blake Griffin.
And this is what separates NBA fans from say, football fans. From my experience, football fans who begin to seriously follow a team then follow them all the way, through thick and thin. Liverpool fans will still be Liverpool fans, whether they finish 2nd in the Premiership like two years ago or near the relegation zone, like they have threatened to this year.
There is a certain joy in standing up for your squad even though they might be going through a shit-storm. I've been a tragic New York Knicks fan ever since the Allan Houstan-Latrell Sprewell-Marcus Camby inspired squad hustled hard as the underdog and made it all the way to the Final in 1999. It has basically been downhill from there, and although the Knicks haven't been the league's worst team all those years, they have certainly been the league's biggest laughing stock. It was difficult to wake up every day and see an 'L' next to a Knick box score. And yes, they have improved this season a little, but there is still a long way to go before they achieve elite status.
I wish the Cavs' fans had stuck with them, too. 24 straight losses aren't easy to take. What's worse is the 24,000 fans who they've lost, too. Or perhaps, they shouldn't have gained these many fans because of one man in the first place, right?
Anyways, here's a heads-up to those looking to jump a bandwagon. The Knicks are close to trading for Carmelo Anthony, and thus making them more exciting/likeable. Become a fan now before everyone else finds out.
I'm not a fan of Chelsea Football Club. I'm a Real Madrid fan, and in England, my favourite team is Liverpool. So when I think Chelsea, I think Luis Garcia.
That out of the way, let me move on to more pressing (and relevant) matters. Business Standard (or 'BS', as they like to be acronymed), have released a bit of news today that announcing that Chelsea FC, the English Premier League champions, are looking for a partnership with an Indian corporate house to promote "football schools, merchandise, cafes, and restaurants" and India.
But that's not all, according to this report, Chelsea is also looking to tie-up with the NBA in India to work together to set up infrastructure.
“We are looking at an anchor partner which has to be an Indian corporate house, which understands the Indian market and not a foreign MNC. It is through this route that we plan to enter India and set up our football schools and franchise our brand,” said Ben Wells, head of marketing of the Chelsea Football Club.
Chelsea is also in talks with the US-based National Basketball Association (NBA) to jointly set up schools — having facilitates for both football and basketball. “There is no clash between these two and as NBA is already in India, we are open to talks with them to build the infrastructure” said Wells.
More good news for football and basketball fans in India... I can't wait till the day when I wake up, switch on a news channel, and I don't see a bunch of cricketers whining about bookies, 99-not-outs, and having to actually run a little from time to time.
It's a tale of three leagues, in three countries, of three sports. 1. National Basketball Association (NBA) - Basketball, USA 2. English Premier League (EPL) - Football, England 3. Indian Premier Leauge (IPL) - Cricket, India
India has a total of ONE succesful professional sports league: the IPL. ONE. Like it or hate it, but that's the truth. Hell, even many cricket purists hate it, disregarding the Twenty-20's format as 'real' cricket.
Whatever - we aren't here to argue about what cricket should be. We're here to talk about what the IPL wants to be. The IPL wants to be the NBA, and it has wanted to be the NBA for quite some time. It is no secret that the league format, the franchises, the cheerleaders, the dugout (or "bench"), the player profiles, the "strategic" time-outs, the advertising frenzy, the television broadcasts, etc in the IPL have borrowed heavily from the NBA and even the EPL. Sorry football fans, but in many ways financially, the IPL has actually overtaken the EPL. According to the inaugural Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries (ARGSS) (later published on sportingintelligence.com), IPL became the second highest paid league in the world this year, overtaking the EPL. You know what's it second to? The NBA.
Even NBA Commissioner/Tsar/Maharaja David Stern become a fan of the IPL last November. In an interview with DNA-Mumbai, Stern said, "We are closely watching as to how the IPL has been a game-changer in sport. It has adopted a number of Western sporting practices like the franchise system, player bidding, the home-and-away games, double-headers and the like."
Now, IPL may take yet another page out of the NBA book. After adding two new franchises to the existing eight in the IPL, the BCCI is looking to change its format to finish the tournament in the same seven-week period as the previous three IPL editions. Until IPL-3, each team played each other team twice, home and away, to play a total of 14 matches each, which meant that a grand total of 60 matches were played. If the same format is continued for 10 teams, 94 games would have to be played. The BCCI don't want that because they have a time constraint.
One of their options is to do with the NBA does: Divide the teams into two groups (NBA-read: Conferences) of five. Like the NBA, the teams in the same conference play each other three or four times, whereas teams in opposing conferences play each other twice, once home, and once away. Each team plays 82 games in the regular season. In the IPL, the proposition is that each team plays other teams in its groups twice (home and away) and the teams in the group once.
Good idea, but it does create problems. Home advantage is something that teams obviously rely on, so on what basis will the home games be played in the inter-group games?
The other idea I feel is worse, which is to have the same round-robin system in the two groups, and then the best teams move on to a 'Super Six' stage and they all play each other. With this format, there are many teams who may never get to play each other, and that completely defies the whole point of being a league.
My solution is this: screw the groups. Don't follow the NBA, follow the EPL. Have all teams play each other home AND away like the current system. Play 94 games. I can hear the groans already: there aren't enough days to fit these many games. Or the groans from TV broadcasters: we can't show more than one or two games a day because TV ratings will take a hit.
I don't see why the league can't be expanded to take a longer time. This way, it will become less of a quick tournament and more of a 'season'. Yes, international cricket clashes will cause a problem, but just like international breaks in the football season, the IPL can incorporate their season around cricket international breaks, too.
And it's fine to glamourise our leagues just as media has done it in the US, but their needs to be a limit, and that limit is crossed when the sport is overshadowed by celebrity and marketing culture. I searched for 'ipl' in Google-Images, and you know what I got? Three of the first four photos are of Katrina Kaif, Preity Zinta, and Shah Rukh Khan. The first cricketers don't show up till the eight pic. Even Vijay Mallaya scores earlier.
If we are truly looking to bring a sports league/season culture such as that in the USA, Europe, etc into India, our leagues have to be bigger, last longer, and be ABOUT THE SPORT. It is laughable that the second-richest league in the world lasts just seven weeks.
IMG-Reliance will also develop professional basketball and football leagues in India, nurture young talent at the academies, and train coaches in these sports as well.
The new company, IMG Reliance, would set up sports facilities across the country to train athletes, thus developing the sports market. The model would be similar to the one followed in mature sports and entertainment markets such as the US. The companies plan to create and operate major sports and entertainment assets. Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries, said: "Development of sports and the sporting culture is a social imperative for India in the 21st century. World-class infrastructure, frugal engineering, technology and scientific coaching are an integral part of development of today's sporting talent globally."
Plans are underway to create an agency to offer 360-degree sports management to celebrities from the world of sports, Bollywood and fashion. IMG would transfer its existing business and assets in the country to the joint venture. These include the Aircel Chennai Open, the Association of Tennis Professionals World Tour event and Lakmé Fashion Week. However, the ongoing Indian Premier League would stay with IMG and the company's international business and executive team is to manage it. Ted Forstmann, chairman and CEO of IMG, said: "The performance of Indian athletes on the national and international stage will improve dramatically with the correct development strategies. As a consequence, the commercial performance of sport and entertainment in India will be enhanced."
To quote an article from the The Wall Street Journal, IMG owner Ted Forstmann said that "the venture's ambitions are to create something akin to England's Premier League, for which IMG produces and distributes television programming... People might laugh at that now, but let's see where we are in five years"
The real potential profits from the venture will come from the development of professional sports leagues. The IMG-Reliance venture will look to strike arrangements with India's soccer and basketball federations to help them build these leagues.
Wow. I don't mean neccessarily good wow or bad wow... Just.. Wow...
It's all really happening now isn't it? When the richest Indian company and one of the most succesful sports management companies from the USA get involved in helping to build facilities and a basketball league in India, you know it's more than just empty words.
I've always believed that India's sporting success has always come despite the government. Despite the public sector. So, while the BFI plans and contemplates and slowly trudges towards starting a pro basketball league in the country, here come Ambani and Forstmann with a lot more money and a lot more vampire fangs to suck into the growing Indian athletic juices. Their proposed basketball and football leagues will not be too different in terms of the commercial standpoint from Lalit Modi's IPL T-20 Cricket league. Purists may completely disregard what the IPL and T-20 have done to the game, but there is no denying that now being a professional cricketer is an exciting and possible option for a lot more Indians than before.
This could turn out well for basketball in India. Better facilities, better training, more money, more talent, better teams, more fans, more merchandise... More basketball.
On the other side, it could all go bonkers... If the soul of the game itself is disregarded. Money may be able to buy a lot of things, but it'll be interesting to see how they manage to buy fans for the game in India. It's not impossible, for basketball and football are very easily likable sports, and are already two of the fastest growing sports in the country. I just hope that, like T-20 threatened to butcher what purists called "real cricket", this league doesn't butcher the game of basketball itself.
Here is an article of mine that was recently published on SLAMOnline.com. It is an extended of my earlier post NBA.com/India(!!)
While researching for any recent news concerning the NBA’s growing interest in India, I discovered a short video on YouTube, where a bumbling journalist for NDTV (one of India’s best-known news channels) finds Shaq in Phoenix, and asks him a thing or two about NBA in India. Shaq stoically answered superficial questions about promoting the game in India, adding sometime along the lines of India and the NBA needing each other… “We need to come out there and have a couple of games…”
Soon after, the interviewer dropped a gem of a question, which started off with, “Now, you know in India, you’re known as much for Space Jam as you are for your slam dunks…”. And a few seconds later, adds, “Now again, you have a lot of rap fans, a lot of fans in India. Do you want to do a little rap for your fans?" Shaq’s ‘rap’ went something like this: “I just wanna say I love you / See you / Peace.”
I laughed for a few long minutes after this, took a deep breath, and then laughed some more. This is the knowledge of NBA in India, through one of the countries ‘best-informed’ media houses: Shaq was in Space Jam (apparently, nobody else but me tuned in during that July afternoon back in 2006 when HBO-India showed Kazaam. But what the hell, even I tuned out when Shaq started to rap in that Aladdin costume.
I may be picking cynically over one or two simple mistakes by that journalist, but the general mainstream awareness in the Indian media about the NBA isn’t too far from this. Except for the fringe population of basketball nerds, most NBA fans in India don’t know the Chris Bosh from the Chris Paul, the Baron from the Ricky, and wonder why the NBA sent a 65 million year old Triceratops named Mutombo to inaugurate basketball courts here.
Despite the ignorance and disinterest of the Indian audiences, it would be fair to say that, so far, the NBA’s efforts in India haven’t been commendable, especially in the last two years. It all really got into gear in July 2008, when Dominique Wilkins, Sam Perkins, Kyle Korver, Ronny Turiaf, Linton Johnson and Pat Garrity toured India as part of a Basketball Without Borders program to promote basketball and oversee an Asian youth camp that was held in New Delhi. Wait, did I say Dominique Wilkins? Dominique Fr*ggin Wilkins came to India, and yes, Dominic Fr*ggin Wilkins left after nothing but a minor whimper of fanfare. I guess we were too busy watching Shaq dunk over Bugs Bunny, huh?
There was an even bigger star that visited the Indian shores in recent years… Back in the summer of 2006, an adidas sponsored event landed none other than Kevin Garnett here, as part of KG’s promotional visit to India and China. His whirlwind tour touched several parts of the country, and I was lucky to crash his visit to a school in New Delhi and ask KG (then unsettled at the Timberwolves) to join the Knicks. He laughed.
In April this year things started to heat up – the NBA started to webcast live playoff games in India by offering free previews and specialized subscription packages. Around the same time, world famous virgin and three-time NBA champion AC Green was sent to India by the NBA to feature in court dedications in Mumbai. When interviewed, Green called for a professional league in India.
Things looking up? The NBA began looking to open an office in India, and a blink of an eye later, December 2009 falls upon us, and here comes Deke! Mount Mutombo, in all his prehistoric glory, was next, inaugurating basketball courts in Mumbai and Chennai a couple of weeks ago.
But the biggest news followed just a few days later: The NBA formally launched its India website: NBA.com/India, and all of a sudden, I was watching the NBA Commish greeting Indian basketball fans, expressing joy, hope, delight, etc…
The website is a humble, low-maintenance version of the NBA’s official website: its designed to target new or emerging basketball fans, with features such as video highlights, basic NBA rules, and Basketball 101 about things that most fans may find obvious: How to shoot the perfect free throw? What the hell is a ‘Sixth Man’? Court Dimensions? Etc, etc… The website even has some material in Hindi, although there have been complaints about inaccuracies with their usage of the Devanagiri script.
Another feature will be the Point-Counterpoint Blog, kept by two of my favorite NBA PGs, Steve Nash and Baron ‘I’ll forever make Andrei Kirilenko’s descendants shiver’ Davis. I know, information overload, isn’t it?
What really interests me is the feature of Thursday Live Game Webcasts, which began with the Wizards playing the Kings (my friend’s supposedly ‘excellent’ broadband connection couldn’t pick it up though, so instead I followed Live Box Scores on Yahoo! Sports. Sad, yes, I know.) If this venture is eventually successful, real NBA fans here will be able to watch an additional live game every week, adding to the measly two we get Friday and Saturday mornings.
The potential is great… But will the Indian media and fans embrace it? Why should they embrace a game where non-Indian cities take on other non-Indian cities with non-Indian players, anyways?
Well, because, firstly, China did it. And secondly, there’s the English Premier League…
I like to compare the “coming of the NBA” to the outrageously over-the-top coming of the English Premier League (EPL — football to the uninitiated, soccer to the American) to India: not only do ESPN/STAR Sports show five or six EPL games a week, they also have several talk shows, magazine shows, and highlight shows talking about the EPL matches in great depth. These shows are regularly directed at the Asian/Indian audience which makes them even more fun to watch for the football fan here.
The EPL was always on its way here — teams like Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea easily have large audiences in India, and players like the (now departed) Cristiano Ronaldo, Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Cesc Fabregas, etc., etc., etc., give our audiences icons to look up to. The excitement has spilled out including fan-followings of the star-studded Real Madrid and Barcelona teams in the Spanish Primera Liga.
But it’s not like the NBA has a lack of potential icons — as a matter of fact, it is literally TEEMING with it. You could play like LeBron or Kobe, like Wade or Dwight or Chris Paul, or Kevin Garnett or Duncan. There are flashy dunks, no-look passes, game winners, and old-school entertainers/favorites like Iverson or Shaq (I cringe and feel archaic as I say that: Shaq and AI are OLD SCHOOL?)
But the final goal, at least the way I see it, shouldn’t be just commercialization of the NBA, but popularization of basketball as a whole in the country. I recently contacted JD Walsh, the founder of the JDBasketball movement who has spent the last three years in India as a coach, talent scout, and a promoter of basketball in India. “I do hope that the NBA [site] will provide a new introspective to cultivate NBA fans in India,” JD said, “I do think the internet in India will need to grow some before its really significant — which it will. A good litmus of the trajectory of increasing basketball popularity in India will be not only be seen on NBA blogs but on the sites of others writing about the grassroots play of India–and more kids playing the game.”
The website will have to become a stalwart to accelerate the slow integration of basketball in Indian culture. The Basketball Federation of India (BFI) had this to say (source: Techwhack): “There is a great appetite for basketball across India and the sites will offer Indian fans the opportunity to learn more about the NBA and basketball in India. Basketball is one of the fastest-growing sports in India.”
That it is, and in typical NBA.com style, we can expect a lot of fluffy, everything-about-the-NBA-is-awesome reporting from the India site, but hey, it’s a start. The NBA has appointed two featured India bloggers: Experienced DNA sports journalist Ayaz Memon and Hindustan Times correspondent Sahil Sharma. Here’s to hoping that their efforts help the awareness of the game blossom here.
More news for NBA and basketball fans in India... I guess the NBA wasn't satisfied with just sending Deke here: Late last night, the NBA launched NBA.com/India, a website catered towards the Indian audience. According to an article released on The Times of India website last night, the website "... will offer a comprehensive fan experience including live games, video highlights, select Hindi content, player blogs and original columns from two India-based NBA journalists". So, what does this mean? Initially, a bit of hoopla, some excitement, etc. But all that real NBA fans are really interested in are more live games broadcasted here. Two a week doesn't even start to whet our appetites... I like to compare the "coming of the NBA" to the outrageously over-the-top coming of the English Premier League (EPL - football to the uninitiated, soccer to the American) to India: not only do ESPN/STAR Sports show five or six EPL games a week, they also have several talk shows, magazine shows, and highlight shows talking about the EPL matches in great depth. These shows are regularly directed at the Asian/Indian audience which make them even more fun to watch for the football fan here. The EPL was always on its way here - teams are Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea easily have large audiences in India, and players like the (now departed) Christiano Ronaldo, Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, Cesc Fabregas, etc, etc, etc, give our audiences icons to look up to. But its not like the NBA has a lack of potential icons - as a matter of fact, it is literally TEEMING with it. You could play like LeBron or Kobe, like Wade or Dwight, or Chris Paul or Kevin Garnett or Duncan if you're old school. There are flashy dunks, no-look passes, game winners, and if you're yet older school, there's Iverson or Shaq (I cringe and feel pre-historic as I say that: Shaq and AI are OLD SCHOOL?) NBA.com/India opens with a welcome message from our friendly neighbourhood NBA commissioner David Stern telling India fans how awesome the website is/how awesome us Indian fans are. Great. We are told about all the coolness the website will pack, but what really interests me are the Live Online Game Webcasts every Thursday, starting with Wizards @ Kings day after tommorow. At this point, I mentally shouted out a little "Hibachi" to myself. Here is Mr. Stern's welcoming welcome:
Another feature will be the Point-Counterpoint Blog, kept by two of my favourite NBA PG's, Steve 'Stee' Nash and Baron 'I'll forever make Andrei Kirilenko's descendents shiver' Davis. I know, information overload, isn't it? The Basketball Federation of India (BFI) had this to say (source: Techwhack): “There is a great appetite for basketball across India and the sites will offer Indian fans the opportunity to learn more about the NBA and basketball in India. Basketball is one of the fastest-growing sports in India.” That it is, and in typical NBA.com style, we can expect a lot of fluffy, everything-about-the-NBA-is-awesome reporting from the India site, but hey, it's a start. The NBA has appointed two featured India bloggers: Experienced DNA sports journalist Ayam Memon and Hindustan Times correspondent Sahil Sharma. Here's to hoping that their efforts help the game blossom here. Additionally, the NBA has also launched a mobile site for India: m.nba.com/india which will also have news, scores, standings, etc...
What do you feel about the NBA India? Share your thoughts here...
A few weeks ago, the results for the 2011 Global Sports Salaries Survey were revealed - and the results are interesting indeed. Some of the top football, basketball, and even cricket teams in the world are represented from league's like Primera Liga (football), NBA (basketball), and IPL (cricket). 
And about our Indian cricket leagues? Well, they seemed to have fallen far behind. Last year, the Royal Challengers Bangalore of the IPL were 12th on the list. This year, they are still the richest IPL team, but have fallen to 26th. 
Any more surprises? Barcelona, the leaders, pay an average annual salary per of $7,910,737 per player. Manchester United, one of the most famous teams in football (real football, soccer football), rank 16th. Liverpool are 20th. The two best NBA teams, in terms of record this season, are 42nd (Bulls) and 43rd (Spurs). 
