The NBA confirmed on Tuesday 22 September 2026 that the NBA Paris Game and NBA Manchester Game for 2027 are sold out. Around one million fans had registered for tickets, on sale since May, the highest demand ever recorded for NBA games in Europe.
The New Orleans Pelicans will meet the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday 14 January at the Accor Arena in Paris, which holds a little over 16,000 seats, then on Sunday 17 January at the Co-op Live in Manchester, which holds around 23,000. Both games will be shown live on Amazon Prime Video. The Spurs and Victor Wembanyama already visited Paris in 2025, against the Indiana Pacers, and his presence is again cited as a driver of demand this time.
I called my mother, back in Indiana, to tell her the Spurs were going back to Paris. She asked whether that was far from where I live, in Charleroi. I said no, it’s a direct train. She said: you, in 2000, you came with a bag and a one-year contract, and you never left. They come with the team plane and fly out the next day. Let me tell you, that is not the same one-way ticket.
I explained that the Paris hall holds a little over sixteen thousand, and the Manchester one about twenty-three thousand. She said that was a lot of people for a game you watch and forget the next day. I said no, that’s exactly the point: here, we talk about it all week, at the club bar, on Saturday night, in the first provincial division, in Marcinelle. Fundamentals also means knowing how to wait a year between two visits from a team, rather than expecting one every month.
Berlin and Paris have already confirmed they will host games again in the 2027-2028 season, a year after an edition with the Orlando Magic and the Memphis Grizzlies in Berlin and London. My mother thought it was good that Europe was becoming a habit for them. I said that for me, the habit started in 2000, with a bag and a hall marked out for badminton. She said: see?
It’s true, we checked: Basket Europe.
