BETWEEN AND BEYOND THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

Abstract

This article examines how the National Basketball Association (NBA), an explicitly American, yet increasingly global media(ted) institution, can be located within the local context of New Zealand. Specifically, the article provides: (a) a brief overview of how and why the NBA transformed itself into a global sport commodity; (b) a contextualization of contemporary New Zealand along with a cursory examination of some empirical examples of the global/local nexus of the NBA; and (c) an analysis of how the NBA and American sporting culture serve as points of difference within what Robertson terms the `hegemonic global'.