NBA store in China. (File Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) Macau: The NBA returns to the lucrative Chinese market this week with two pre -season games after six years of absence after the team tweeted its support for democratic protests in Hong Kong.Brooklyn networks and Phoenix Suns will play on Friday and Sunday in Macau, a special administrative area in China near Hong Kong. China, the second largest economy in the world, effectively reduced links with the league in 2019 after the NBA managers were behind the then CEO of Houston Daryl MOREY.According to official statistics, about 125 million people play basketball in China in China, and the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the League has lost “hundreds of millions” over the division that included the matches initially pulled out of Chinese television.Deng Weijian, a 24 -year -old student, called basketball as an indispensable part of his life and said that “although the official transmitters banned the NBA, I found other channels to watch it, as well as people around me.”“The NBA has to learn a lesson that is to avoid sensitive topics and let the basketball return to the competition of skills,” Deng said.The return of the league coincides with the trembling relations between US issues under US President Donald Trump, and American corporations hope to attract Chinese consumers while discouraging political control at home.Silver said in 2019 that one of the long -term NBA values was to promote freedom of expression.“We rely on the US Foreign Ministry for management wherever we involve fans around the world, including China and more than 200 other countries and territories,” said representatives of the Commissioner and Chief Operations Director of the NBA and Chief Operating Director Mark Tatum.Asked if the NBA still supported their community members to express opinions on China, Tatum answered, “Yes.”‘Spiral outrage’
Foto NBA Legends Yao Ming, President of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and Kobe Bryant at the ceremony during the final match of the World Cup 2019 between Argentina and Spain in Beijing Wukesong Sport Arena on September 15, 2019 in China in Beijing. (Getty Images)
Fanbase NBA in China has been growing in China since the teams first played in the country in 1979, and its popularity was overcrowded with an eight-time NBA All-Star Yao Ming.Between 2004 and 2019, 17 teams played a total of 28 pre -season games in the country.This ended at the end of 2019 after MOREY published a picture with the slogan “Fight for Freedom, Stand With Hong Kong” at the peak of the pro-democratic protests in the Chinese Financial Center.Mark Dreyer, author of the book on the Chinese Sports Industry, said the incident was a “perfect storm”, deteriorating how the league issued different statements in Chinese and English.“Fans in the US thought they were too obliged to the Chinese government … (a) The Chinese party thought it was not sufficiently deferenced,” Dreyer said.Luo Yi, a NBA fan since Yao Ming, said he believed that MOREY “expressed his personal perspective” without thinking about the consequences at the national or league level.According to the Australian lecturer of the National University of Debby Chan, he illustrated the ongoing trend of Chinese nationalism of Chinese consumer nationalism, where online sentiment and state media bring to the “spiral of outrage”.“Criticism of Chinese Netizens have been reinforced by state media during the incident MOREY, said Chan, who examines the Chinese economic statecraft.Soft landing?
In 2019, a discussion broke out when Daryl Morey published a democracy in China. (Daryl MOREY’S TWITTER DAMAGER)
The NBA’s Chinese broadcasts eventually renewed and last year the league signed an agreement on multimillions of dollars on theater pre -season matches in Macau.Games will take place this week in the Venetian Arena, which is part of the Las Vegas Sands conglomerate controlled by Adelson’s family, who are the majority ownership group in Dallas Mavericks.Macau is the only place in China, where gambling is legal in the casino.Both games sold out in a few hours, NBA said.Dreyer said that the return of the NBA was never in doubt, because China was a “key market”, and the league was reportedly hosting two games per year under the contract for five years.“It’s a smart step to go to Macaa because it’s a soft landing,” he said.Dreyer said he believed that the NBA managed to avoid the repetition of the debacle 2019.“Everyone was aware of how bad the league was burned in China. No one will intentionally mix the pot,” he said.However, the lecturer said that it is “difficult to find out the transfer of the red lines of Chinese nationalist consumers” and point to recent examples of rushing brands to calm Beijing.The construction worker He Xixuan, 26, said, “Politics should not be part of basketball” and added that sport could be for the Chinese and Americans to find common ground.“If everyone talks about sport and not national politics, it may be good for both parties,” he said.
