I love this potential move by the NBA, and think that the MLB and NHL should take note and follow suit:

Spain — An all-Europe division of the NBA — with teams in cities such as Madrid, London, Moscow, Berlin and Cologne — has been a fantasy for basketball fans on this side of the Atlantic for a number of years.

That fantasy may have taken the first step toward reality in Barcelona this week when NBA Commissioner David Stern received an informal proposal from a delegation of mighty Spanish sporting club Real Madrid that could lead to five NBA expansion franchises one day being placed in Europe.

How great would it be to have a Euro division, Asia division, etc. Considering the fact that our professionals always dub themselves “World Champs” it would be nice to see if they can actually back that up. I think it would also help to improve the image of America, that is being willing to branch out and become part of the international community other than with our Armed Forces or politics. Now I really don’t know if David Stern is the guy to get something like this done, lord knows that Bud Selig is not, so mabye Gary Bettman can be that guy.

It would also help to keep salries down in professional sports if Euro and Asia teams with minute payrolls compared to their American counterparts come in and beat US teams. Then US players have to justify why they get paid that much but are not the best athletes in the world. Basically like a checks and balances concept. Too bad our government does not have something like that set up. What? Really? Okay, well so I slept during my US government classes… my bad.

• NBA - Stern hears European pitch from Real Madrid, Divac (ESPN)