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NBA Brand Caravan Travels to Abu Dhabi With Timberwolves

Kurt Badenhausen
·4 min read

The Minnesota Timberwolves eagerly raised their hands to be part of the 2023 NBA Abu Dhabi Games when the league came calling. Yes, it disrupted the traditional flow of training camp, and the logistics of taking 200 coaches, players, family members, executives, corporate partners and others to the United Arab Emirates capital required months of planning.

But the players came home this month from the two-game preseason trip against the Dallas Mavericks at Etihad Arena with unforgettable experiences. Rudy Gobert, their 7-1 center, rode a camel, and Karl-Anthony Towns and Gobert dined at the royal palace with Sheikh Mansour with pet orangutans part of the festivities.

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The team also benefited by laying the groundwork for future business opportunities with companies in the region.

“This is a growing emerging market for the league on a global scale, and we want to be involved in it,” Ethan Casson, Timberwolves CEO, said in a phone interview. “I think that there’s some opportunities for us to participate in.”

Ahead of the trip, the team announced a partnership with Caribou Coffee, which is based in Minneapolis but has more than 750 franchises worldwide, including nearly 70 in the UAE. It has agreements to franchise an additional 300 locations in the U.S. and expects to sign similar development agreements internationally—Towns might be the world’s tallest barista.

“We started talking about this trip, and their eyes light up,” Casson said. “We started just brainstorming about bringing two Minnesota brands to Abu Dhabi.”

Caribou is the Timberwolves hometown coffee brand, but its sponsorship falls under the league’s International Team Marketing Plan (ITMP). The NBA controlled marketing outside of North America until 2019, when it granted teams the right to sign up to two international partners and leverage the team’s image and license outside North America. The league bumped the limit to three in 2021, and then last year raised it to 10. Caribou is the first ITMP partner for Minnesota.

The ITMP has attracted international companies to leverage the association with NBA teams: the Golden State Warriors’ jersey-patch deal with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is one of the most prominent and lucrative sponsorship deals in the league. But the changes also aid domestic partners who are seeking to expand their own global presence.

Since 1978, the NBA has hosted 213 games in more than 20 countries outside of U.S. and Canada, as it looks to expand its global footprint with fans and corporate partners—the first featured the then-Washington Bullets versus Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel. The game is more international on the court than ever, with a record 125 international players from 40 countries and territories across six continents on opening-night rosters.

“Playing games outside of North America is a critical part of our year-round efforts to engage our passionate international fans, many of whom may not otherwise experience the excitement of a live NBA game,” Samantha Engelhardt, NBA senior vice president, global strategy & innovation, said in an email.

The NBA Abu Dhabi Games 2023 were part of a multiyear collaboration to reach new and existing fans in the UAE through live NBA and NBA 2K League games and events. The NBA rolled out former stars including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ray Allen and Gary Payton as part of the games, as well as celebrities such as actor Michael B. Jordan and rapper T-Pain.

NBA games have aired in the Middle East for 35 years and have been partnered with Qatari-based beIn Sports since the 2007-08 season. The league has Arabic-language social media channels on Twitter and Instagram and more than 20 licensees in the Middle East that offer a variety of authentic NBA products. The NBA has 3.1 million fans in the UAE, per YouGov.

“We believe the preseason games and our ongoing basketball development efforts there will be a catalyst for the continued growth of basketball in the UAE and across the Middle East,” Engelhardt said.

The Minnesota Timberwolves start the 2023-24 NBA season with heightened expectations on the court after back-to-back playoff appearances after appearing in just one postseason the prior 17 years. Guard Anthony Edwards has had a breakout 12 months, including his star showing at this summer’s FIBA World Cup, and Towns and Gobert have made a combined six All-NBA teams.

“It’s only recently that we’ve been able to get in the postseason and start to create some relevancy and a more established brand,” Casson said. “One of the things that that was really important was we need to be on the global stage, and we need to be participating in the international games.” In 2017, Minnesota played the Warriors in China, but that was prior to ITMP. “The game has globalized from a partnership standpoint, and we’re really able to activate and get aggressive with different areas of the world,” Casson said. “We’ve just scratched the surface.”

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