Macau: The NBA Returning to the Chinese market this week with two pre-season games following a six-year absence after his support team officials in the pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong.Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns will play the game on Friday and Sunday in Macau, a Chinese special administration area close to Hong Kong. China, the second largest economy in the world, effectively cutting ties with the league in 2019 after NBA executives stand behind the General Manager Houston Rockets Daryl Morey.About 125 million people playing basketball in China, according to official statistics, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” on split, which included the game initially drawn from Chinese television.Deng Weijian, a 24-year-old student, called basketball as part of his life, says that “Although the official broadcasters ban NBA, I found another channel to watch it and so did the people around me”.“The NBA needs to learn the lesson, which is to avoid sensitive topics and let the basketball become a skill competition,” Deng said.The return of the league coincides with the US-China shaky relationship under the US President Donald TrumpWith American companies hoping to attract Chinese consumers while researching political supervision at home.Silver said in 2019 that one of the old NBA values was to support freedom of speech.“We rely on the United States State Department for guidance where we involve fans around the world, including in China and more than 200 other countries and territories,” NBA Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum told AFP in a written response this week.Asked if the NBA still supported community members to voice their opinions in China, Tatum replied, “Yes.”‘Circle anger’
Photo of NBA Legend File Yao Ming, President of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and Kobe Bryant in the ceremony during the 2019 Fiba World Cup final between Argentina and Spain at Beijing Wukesong Sport Arena on September 15, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Getty Images)
The NBA Fanbase in China has grown since the first team played in the country in 1979, and its popularity has been highlighted by the All-Star Star of Yao Ming.Between 2004 and 2019, 17 teams played a total of 28 pre-season games in the country.That ended in late 2019 after Morey posted an image with the “Fight for Freedom, standing with Hong Kong” at the height of pro-democracy protests in the Chinese financial hub.Mark Dreyer, the author of a book on the Chinese sports industry, said the incident was a worse “perfect storm” by how the league made different statements in Chinese and English.“Fans in the United States are of the opinion that they are too obligated to the Chinese government … (and) the Chinese think they are not surviving enough,” Dreyer said.Luo Yi, a NBA fans from the day of Yao Ming, said he believed that Morey had “expressed personal views” without considering the national or league implications.Spat describes the continued trend of Chinese consumer nationalism, where online sentiment and national media focus on “spiral anger”, according to Australian National University lecturer Debby Chan.“Chinese netizens criticism is reinforced by national media” during Morey’s incident, said Chan, who researched the Chinese economy statecraft.Soft landing?
The controversy erupted in 2019 when Daryl Morey recorded democracy in China. (DARYL MOREY twitter holder)
The Chinese NBA game was finally continued and last year the league signed a million dollar deals for a pre-season competition in Macau.This week’s game will be held at the Venetian Arena, part of the Las Vegas Sands conglomerate controlled by the Adelson family, which is a majority group in Dallas Mavericks.Macau is the only place in China where the casino gambling is valid.Both games are sold in hours, the NBA said.Dreyer said NBA’s return was never doubtful as China was a “major market”, with the league reported under a contract to host two games each year for five years.“It is a smart move to go to Macau as it is a soft landing,” he said.Dreyer said he believed that the NBA would prevent the repetition of the 2019 defeat.“Everyone realizes how bad the league is burning in China. No one will deliberately move the pot,” he said.But lecturer Chan said it was “challenging to determine the red line that turned to Chinese nationalist users”, pointing to the examples of new brands -this recently rushed to calm Beijing.Construction worker He Xixuan, 26, said “politics cannot be part of the basketball”, adding that the sport can be a way for the Chinese and Americans to find the same place.“If everyone is talking about sports and not national politics, it can be good for both sides,” he said.
