The NBA last week brought star-studded lineups to Macau for the league’s return to China after six years, but many of the biggest wins happened off the basketball court, industry insiders and experts said.
Thousands of fans on Friday cheered as the Phoenix Suns — led by four-time NBA All-Star Devin Booker — beat the Brooklyn Nets, with celebrities such as David Beckham, Jackie Chan and Alibaba founder Jack Ma in front-row seats.
It heralded the NBA’s return to China for the first time since being effectively frozen out of the country in 2019 after a team official voiced support for democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Photo: Bloomberg
Hours after the pre-season match at a sold-out Venetian Arena, US President Donald Trump announced an additional 100 percent tariff on China, underscoring the volatile backdrop of the NBA’s detente with Beijing.
Even so, the NBA and star players are rushing back to the post-COVID-19 pandemic Chinese market, with LeBron James and Stephen Curry visiting the country this year to hawk their brands.
“One thing a lot of the athletes would say is that everyone read about James Harden coming to China [in 2023], selling his wine and selling out in like 60 seconds,” said Michael Lin, a vice president at sports digital agency Mailman.
Photo: AFP
Booths near the arena showed off the NBA’s Chinese brand partners, including e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, live-video app Kuaishou and dairy giant Mengniu, as well as merchandise aimed at younger consumers.
David Leiner, president of trading cards for Fanatics Collectibles, said the company started selling China-specific NBA card packs in more than 30 cities, adding that the 10 yuan (US$1.41) entry price point was “critical.”
“For us, it was very important to get the product broadly distributed,” Leiner said.
China became a priority for the NBA in the early 2000s in part due to Yao Ming’s superstardom, former NBA China managing director Mark Fischer said.
The business entity NBA China was valued at US$2.3 billion around the time of its 2008 formation, Fischer said.
That figure grew to more than US$4 billion a decade later, NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark Tatum said in a 2018 Forbes interview.
In 2019, the league signed a US$1.5 billion deal with Tencent on exclusive online streaming rights, but that was soon overshadowed when Houston Rockets official Daryl Morey went public in support of Hong Kong protesters.
The NBA making its return in Macau showed that Beijing was “opening the side door, but not the main gates and red carpet just yet,” said Fischer, now an international sports consultant.
The teams are also taking their chance to claw back missed revenues from the vast China market.
The Suns hired the marketing team behind American Internet celebrity IShowSpeed’s well-received China streaming tour.
“We’re going as far as working with [the Suns] to shoot content around the players eating mooncakes and making sure that the correct terminology around Lunar New Year versus Chinese New Year is used,” said Andrew Spalter, founder and CEO of digital marketing firm East Goes Global.
The Nets, owned by Taipei-born Alibaba chairman Joseph Tsai, have an in-house Chinese social media team.
Victor Cha, a geopolitics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that China still held the “ultimate form of power over the NBA” and could leverage its huge market to force firms to self-censor.
A sports marketer in China who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Morey post took just minutes to trigger online outrage, and that because of the sheer number of people in and around the NBA it would be “impossible” to avoid a similar incident.
“We know how quickly things can spiral out of control,” the source said. “It’s not even about an individual NBA player; it’s anybody associated with the brand.”
Las Vegas Sands president Patrick Dumont on Friday in Macau tried out Alibaba’s artificial intelligence technology that purported to translate spoken NBA match commentary from English to Chinese, or vice versa.
The Dallas Mavericks owner asked if he could say anything he wanted, as opposed to reading out scripted lines shown to him on a screen.
His host pointed at the text and replied: “Technically, you can say what you want, but this would be the most optimized.”
US President Donald Trump’s granddaughter, Kai Trump, is poised to make her LPGA Tour debut after receiving a sponsor invitation on Tuesday to the Nov. 13 to 16 tournament at Pelican Golf Club in Florida. “My dream has been to compete with the best in the world on the LPGA Tour,” Kai Trump said in a statement posted on the LPGA’s Web site. “This event will be an incredible experience,” she said. “I look forward [to] meeting and competing against so many of my heroes and mentors in golf as I make my LPGA Tour debut.” The 18-year-old high-school senior,
REACTION: Less than 24 hours after a 18-inning Game 3 loss, the Blue Jays’ win ensured that the best-of-seven series is to head back to Toronto for Game 6 tomorrow Vladimir Guerrero Jr on Tuesday blasted a two-run home run as the Toronto Blue Jays bounced back to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 and tie the MLB World Series at two games apiece. Less than 24 hours after a shattering 18-inning Game 3 loss, the Blue Jays climbed off the canvas to breathe new life into their hopes of a first MLB title in 32 years. Guerrero’s two-run blast off Dodgers starter Shohei Ohtani and a superb pitching performance from ace Shane Bieber laid the foundations for a gutsy victory that silenced Dodger Stadium. “I’m always trying to compete
Jannik Sinner on Thursday eased past Francisco Cerundolo 7-5, 6-1 at the Paris Masters to set up a quarter-final clash with Ben Shelton, while reigning champion Alexander Zverev earned a straight-sets win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the third round. A maiden crown in the French capital would return Sinner to No. 1 in the world rankings after current incumbent Carlos Alcaraz suffered a shock early exit at the hands of Britain’s Cameron Norrie. The Italian four-time Grand Slam champion is yet to drop a set in the tournament as he hones in on what would be a fifth title of the
Retired defender Jerome Boateng on Saturday pulled out of a planned coaching internship at Bayern Munich after fans voiced their objection due to the FIFA 2014 World Cup winner being found guilty of assaulting a former girlfriend last year. The former Bayern and Germany defender, who played for the club between 2011 and 2021, had discussed a short internship with coach Vincent Kompany. “Following the recent discussion regarding myself, I have decided to focus on my issues such as the A training license.... That is where my focus is,” he said in a social media post addressed to Bayern and
RSS