NBA preseason and international games: how to buy from abroad

The NBA does not just tour anymore. It plants flags. A regular-season game in Paris one January, a preseason doubleheader in Abu Dhabi in October, a Mexico City game tucked into the November schedule, a return to China that the league has been rebuilding for years. For fans living outside the United States, these are often the only realistic chance to watch an NBA game live in their own time zone, in their own currency, without a transatlantic flight. The problem is that buying a ticket to one of these games does not behave like buying a ticket to a normal NBA night in Cleveland or Miami. The rules shift. The on-sale windows are weird. The seat maps look unfamiliar. And the secondary market opens, closes and reopens at strange hours because half the buyers are awake while the other half are asleep. This guide is about how to plan, not how to panic-buy. ## Why NBA international games sell differently A standard NBA home game goes on sale months in advance and trickles into the secondary market as the season unfolds. International games compress that entire arc into a few weeks. The league usually confirms the host city and date first, then the participating teams, then a presale window for league partners, then a general on-sale, and only after that does a meaningful resale market appear. If you wait for the calendar to look like a normal NBA game, you have already missed the cleanest pricing window. The other quirk is venue. NBA International Series games are not played in NBA arenas. Paris means Accor Arena. Mexico City means Arena Ciudad de Mexico. Abu Dhabi means Etihad Arena. London has used The O2. Each building has its own seating logic, its own loading sections, its own view of a temporary basketball floor laid over a hockey or concert configuration. That matters when you are picking a seat from a map that may not look the way it looks for a Knicks game. ## Build the plan before the on-sale The fans who get the seats they want on international games tend to do three things before tickets are even live: - Confirm the matchup and date through the league's official announcement, not through a forwarded screenshot or a social post. Dates have been corrected after initial rumors. - Decide on a budget band in qualitative terms, not a precise number. Are you going for nosebleeds with a good sightline, mid-tier where you can actually see expressions, or floor-adjacent where the price reflects scarcity? - Pick two or three backup sections on the venue's published seat map. Your first choice will often be gone in the first wave. The fans who improvise on game-week tend to overpay or get stuck behind a stanchion. ## The on-sale ladder Most NBA international games run through a predictable sequence. There is usually an early access window for league partners and credit card holders, then a team-affiliated presale for the two participating clubs, then a general public on-sale through the host venue's primary ticketing system, and only then does meaningful inventory show up on the secondary market. The practical lesson: subscribe to email lists for both participating teams the moment the game is announced. Even if you live in Berlin, signing up for a Suns or Sixers newsletter for two months costs nothing and routinely gets you into a presale a day before the public. For ticket links once the on-sale is live, browse the relevant team hub on this site rather than chasing unfamiliar links in your inbox. ## Currency, fees and cross-border buying International games are priced in local currency. A ticket sold for a Paris game is priced in euros. A Mexico City game is in Mexican pesos. A London game is in pounds. That sounds obvious until you are checking out at 2 a.m. and the total looks wrong because your card is converting at a bad rate. A few things help: - Use a card that does not charge a foreign transaction fee. The savings compound on premium seats. - Let the merchant charge in the local currency, not your home currency. The dynamic currency conversion offered at checkout is almost always worse than your bank's rate. - Screenshot the final total before confirming, so any discrepancy on the statement is easy to dispute. ## Seat selection on a temporary floor International games use arenas that were not designed for basketball. The court is laid in, the lower bowl is partially rebuilt for sightlines, and some sections that look great on a hockey map are blocked by camera platforms or production rigging on game night. Two practical filters: - Sit on the long sides of the floor, not behind the baskets, if you want a TV-style view of plays developing. - Avoid the very first few rows of the lower bowl on the corners unless the venue confirms unobstructed views. Temporary scorer tables and broadcast positions can sit higher than you expect. If the seat map allows a 3D preview, use it. If it does not, search the venue name plus the words view from section before you commit. ## Mexico City, Paris, Abu Dhabi, China Each market has its own rhythm. Mexico City games tend to sell quickly to a passionate local fan base and a steady stream of US visitors flying down for the weekend. Paris games draw from across Europe and disappear fast at the mid-tier price band. Abu Dhabi preseason games have leaned on hospitality and package buyers, which means standalone seats can be scarce but premium experiences are easier to find. China games, as the league rebuilds that calendar, are best treated as moving targets until officially confirmed. In every case, the secondary market gets thinner, not deeper, as the date approaches. The opposite of a normal NBA game. Sellers in these markets are often individuals who travelled and changed plans, not professional brokers with hundreds of seats. ## When to pull the trigger A reasonable rule for international NBA games: buy in the presale or first general on-sale wave if the seat you want is available. The resale dip that often appears two or three weeks before a domestic NBA game does not reliably appear here. Sellers know inventory is limited and tend to hold. If you missed the on-sale, set price alerts on the secondary market for your backup sections rather than your dream section, and check in the morning of your local time zone. That is often when overnight listings from the other side of the world are freshest. ## Make the trip count A Paris game is a weekend in Paris with two hours of NBA in the middle. A Mexico City game is a long weekend with food, altitude and a basketball night. Plan the trip first, lock the ticket second, and treat the seat as one decision inside a larger one. The fans who enjoy these games most are the ones who stopped thinking of them as away games and started thinking of them as destinations.