Wagner Brothers: NBA’s New German Market

Moritz and Franz Wagner are not only valued employees of the Orlando Magic, they are also their best customers. They had ordered a generous contingent of tickets for their club’s game on Thursday evening against the Memphis Grizzlies – “north of 200,” as Moritz said and then added: “We won’t leave this event with a plus.”

Probably not, because tickets in the arena at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof cost between 250 and 550 euros in the upper and lower tiers. The brothers probably spent around 100,000 euros on their own appearance.

In the first two quarters it looked as if there were smarter ways to invest. The Orlando Magic had little going on, they soon found themselves trailing by 20 points and the Wagner Brothers, as they are called in the USA, let themselves be dragged down by the poor team performance.

But then, the final quarter: Franz Wagner with his inimitable move to the basket, the elegant spin move suddenly worked, this quick rotation around his own axis, which could not be defended by any defense in the world. Franz led the Magic in scoring, Moritz guarded Jaren Jackson Jr., the Grizzlies’ best man. That was the distribution of roles. Orlando won 118:111 in Berlin, the Wagners’ hometown.

This was celebrated by the 13,700 fans; it was the loudest basketball game that has ever taken place in Germany. It’s impossible to say exactly how much noise came from the stands. Everything was filled with music and screaming from the control desk, there wasn’t a second of silence. You have to like something like that.

The excited atmosphere in the hall and the hype surrounding them left their mark on the Wagner brothers. “I don’t know whether all this attention is healthy at all,” said Moritz after the game, “I’ll be happy if it goes down a bit now.” Franz said: “It was just a lot mentally. It was a very emotional week.”

Adam Silver, the head of the North American professional league NBA, was also in the audience at the Wagner Festival on Thursday evening. For him, the game was a kind of trial run for what will take place regularly in Berlin from 2027: basketball, which bears the NBA label. Silver is planning to set up a European league; he wants to go to the continent’s metropolises because, he believes, there is a lot of money to be made here: “Europe continues to produce some of the best players in the world, but the commercial success here has not kept pace with the growth of our sport. In any other market, this would be a clear sign of a huge opportunity.”

The fact that there is already a competition, the Euroleague, in which traditional clubs such as Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, ​​Panathinaikos Athens and Maccabi Tel Aviv are organized, does not seem to slow Silver’s desire for expansion. When asked about an impending conflict, the NBA commissioner in Berlin answered evasively: “I think there is an opportunity here to grow European basketball. We don’t necessarily see ourselves as competitors to other basketball or sports organizations. We compete for people’s attention.”

It is currently unclear which clubs will accept the NBA’s offer. There are lists circulating, but there are no official acceptances or rejections yet. In Germany, Alba Berlin, the training association run by Moritz and Franz Wagner, has signaled fundamental interest. FC Bayern Munich is still keeping a low profile so far, but is said to have already been contacted by the NBA.

It is also unclear how the new super league will be financed. Silver would like to see a European competition staged at NBA level. A second glittering world with modern arenas, prominent players and large marketing budgets. At most, there will be a small amount of start-up funding from the NBA for the European branches – the clubs themselves bear the economic risk. But where will the money come from? Even the Euroleague, which has much leaner structures than the NBA, is making a loss. How should additional money be acquired?

Silver relies on the charisma of the NBA. He hopes that big investors will get involved, for example funds that pursue long-term strategies and believe in a bright future.

The American NBA recently signed a breathtaking TV deal: $77 billion for eleven years. Why shouldn’t Europe also benefit from the basketball boom and cash in? That’s how NBA strategists see it.

Silver still has to do a lot of convincing. This Friday he will travel from Berlin to London, where the Orlando Magic will play a second game against the Memphis Grizzlies. There is currently no major basketball club in the capital of the United Kingdom. Which of course has to change quickly, as Adam Silver says.