LILLE, France — The fan wearing a yellow #23 Lakers jersey walked down Rue du Molinet, the cobblestone concourse in the heart of Lille, his eyes scanning the sweet shops and kebab restaurants. When he spotted what he was looking for, he pointed to a fan sitting outside a fast-food restaurant and shouted, in a thick accent, “LEBRON JAMES!”
The second fan – wearing his own #23 jersey, this time a rich royal purple – yelled back, in an equally strong but totally distinct accent, “LEBRON JAMES!” A few punches and then they went their separate ways, united by their love for the NBA’s all-time scoring champion and GOAT candidate.
They were in Lille to see James and the rest of the U.S. men’s basketball team play Serbia, and there were two hundred — maybe thousands — of international NBA fans wearing the jerseys of their favorite players.
For American fans raised on the NBA, seeing the array of jerseys at an international NBA game is like a Remember Some Guys parade. You might see a Vince Carter 90s Raptors jersey (the one with the dribbling dinosaur), or a Tracy McGrady Orlando Magic jersey, or a Dominique Wilkins 80s Hawks jersey, or the entire rainbow of Shaq.
Outside of James, Steph Curry is the most popular jersey, with Lille fans sporting all variants of the City Edition jerseys in addition to the standard Golden State home and away models. As you’d expect at the Olympics, there are a plethora of Team USA jerseys; It’s just a question of whether you want to represent JORDAN, or BIRD, or BRYANT or IVERSON in red, white and blue.
Just like their American counterparts, international NBA fans are well informed and up to date on all the gossip, behind-the-scenes drama and prevailing narratives that often overshadow the actual games. Lille fans gave Kevin Durant a proper welcome for his first game since the playoffs, and tore apart Joel Embiid, who decided to play for the United States instead of France.
This is, in every possible way, the culmination of the NBA’s decades-long effort to make its game truly international. From the 1992 Avengers-caliber Dream Team to the constant goodwill trips to the current crop of international stars (Nikola Jokić, Embiid, Luka Doncic, Victor Wembanyama) to the pure, ineffable coolness that transcends borders, the NBA attracts foreign fans and the numbers show this.
More than 75 percent of the league’s social media followers are from outside the United States, and the NBA is already scheduling big-name stars in weekend afternoon games to take advantage of these international viewing windows. The proof is literally in the streets.
Players are noticing too. “I looked around and saw so many different NBA jerseys in the stands,” Durant said at Pierre-Mauroy Stadium after Sunday’s win over Serbia. “I love it when we bring people together from all over the world, from different walks of life, like this.”
One final thought: The NBA’s dominance abroad is impressive, but it’s not yet complete. Right now, the fandom is serious and non-ironic. How will we know the NBA won? When international fans start boasting stars on their most obscure teams — Patrick Ewing on the Sonics, Hakeem Olajuwon on the Raptors, Rasheed Wallace on the Hawks — then the NBA will be an unstoppable global force. The final stage of fandom is the deep inside joke, and international fans are well on their way to participating in it.
