NBA's Global Design

While much of the world's commercial attention has been focused on China because of its most-populous nation status, rapidly growing economy, and vast middle class; inexplicably, the only other member of the billion-people club on the planet -- India -- goes virtually without notice. Recently, however, the NBA took its Basketball Without Borders program to Delhi, where it is seeking to replicate the professional game's popularity in India that was first spawned in China a couple decades ago. With an 8.5% annual growth rate and an educated middle class (some 300-million strong), India would seem ripe for new capital ventures. But basketball -- and any upstart sport for that matter -- faces a steep climb in displacing Indians' fervent loyalty to cricket, which is akin to a national religion in that country. Still, there is a glimmer of hope . . . if only India could produce its own Yao Ming or two out of its 1.1 billion people.

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