Papabear wrote:Papabear SaysLebron......If he continues down this path it wont matter it he don't get 6 rings he will be a hero for the right of those who can't speak for themselves.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/14/us/lebron-james-nba-china-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
But on Monday night, the vocal NBA star sided with silence as he criticized Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey as "misinformed" over Morey's tweet supporting Hong Kong protesters.
"I just think that when you're misinformed or you're not educated about something -- and I'm just talking about the tweet itself -- you never know the ramifications that can happen. We all see what that did -- not only for our league but for all of us in America, for people in China as well," he told reporters on Monday. James' comments threatened to undermine his reputation as perhaps the foremost social justice advocate in popular culture.....
James' criticism came while the NBA is embroiled in a standoff with China after Morey tweeted his support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. Morey quickly apologized and deleted his original tweet, but the league's Chinese partners suspended ties, state broadcaster CCTV halted all broadcasts of preseason matches, and the Chinese government said the NBA needed to show "mutual respect."
The rift, and the NBA's rapid attempts to salvage its massive Chinese market, have sparked broader questions about the influence of China on free speech in corporate America.
Speaking to reporters before a game in Los Angeles Monday, James called it "a very delicate situation, a very sensitive situation."
When asked whether Morey should be reprimanded for his tweet, James responded, "I think when we all sit back and learn from the situation that happened, understand that what you could tweet or could say, and we all talk about this freedom of speech -- yes, we do all have freedom of speech, but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you're not thinking about others and you're only thinking about yourself."
"I don't want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn't educated on the situation at hand and he spoke. So many people could have been harmed, not just financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and what we say and what we do, even though yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that too."
James, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, added that he and his teammates had stayed silent about the situation because they were "not informed enough" about it, and that "I'm not here to judge how the League handles the situation."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2019/10/09/nba-china-hong-kong-whats-at-stake/3912447002/As impasse over pro-Hong Kong tweet simmers, what's at stake for the NBA in China?
Jeff Zillgitt Mark Medina
USA TODAY
In the late 1980s, when the NBA began making inroads into China, the league sent CCTV NBA games on videotape and told the state-run TV station it could air games at no cost. By 1992, the league had opened an office in Hong Kong, and by 2004, the NBA was playing preseason games in China.
Today, the NBA has billion-dollar deals in China.
And its business relationships are in tumult after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sent a pro-Hong Kong tweet that offended China and ignited a geopolitical crisis between the league and the communist country. As commissioner Adam Silver has apologized while underlining the league's stance on free speech, CCTV has pulled the plug on showing the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers preseason games in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
At stake in the standoff: billions of dollars for both sides and a strong four-decade-long relationship that began with a Washington Bullets exhibition game in 1979. It is a relationship that has multiple layers including Chinese-related business partnerships with NBA players in the millions, a friendship with Basketball Hall of Famer and former NBA All-Star Yao Ming, who is the president of the Chinese Basketball Association and is a vital goodwill ambassador for the NBA in Asia, and millions of fans.
“If all of a sudden China decided it was no longer going to broadcast the NBA, clearly that would hurt CCTV and Tencent [an Internet conglomerate offering multiple e-services], but it would hurt the NBA more,” Syracuse University professor John Wolohan, who specializes in sports law and U.S.-China sports relations, told USA TODAY Sports. “If one of these sides is going to lose, it’s going to be the NBA.”
NBA revenue from China -- and a conservative estimate puts that at $500 million annually based on deals that are publicly known -- is part of basketball-related income which impacts the salary cap and how much money is available to players on an annual basis.
In July, China’s Tencent reached a five-year, $1.5 billion deal to remain the league’s exclusive digital partner in China, and it is the NBA's largest partnership outside of the U.S. CCTV has a lucrative financial partnership with the NBA televising multiple games live each week, including coverage of the playoffs.
NBA China, a separate business arm of the NBA, was valued at $5 billion by Sports Business Journal last month.
Separate from the NBA’s partnerships in China, players are invested in the country, too. Several of them, including stars LeBron James and Steph Curry, make annual visits to sell apparel products from Nike and Under Armour.
Chinese apparel companies have also signed NBA players to endorsement deals: Klay Thompson and Gordon Hayward with Anta, CJ McCollum with Li-Ning and Lou Williams with Peak. Thompson's deal with Anta could reach $80 million over 10 years, according to ESPN. Williams has said he earns more from his endorsement deal than he does playing.
This controversy comes against the backdrop of a much larger issue: the trade war between China and the United States and human rights abuses in China.
On Monday, the U.S. blacklisted 28 Chinese entities because they have been “implicated in human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the XUAR,” according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The NBA is not alone when it comes to China's heavy-handed negotiating tactics. Gaming company Activision Blizzard banned an e-sports player for a year on Tuesday after he expressed support for Hong Kong, and in August, high-end fashion brand Versace apologized for making a T-shirt that listed Hong Kong and Macao as separate countries rather than part of China.
Silver understands the inherent issues for a global company doing business in countries that may not share the same political values. Before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, he was asked about the potential for problems amid the trade policy rift between China and the U.S.
“I am not concerned at this time. Of course we are not immune from global politics,” Silver said.
The fallout from the Morey tweet has been swift and harsh. Chinese celebrities have withdrawn from NBA-related events this week, a visit to a local school by the Nets has been canceled and there is concern the games could be scratched.
“For CCTV to all of a sudden pull the plug on them that shows how serious it is,” Wolohan said.
The NBA and basketball are entrenched in China.
The league has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong, and nearly 500 million fans watched NBA programming on Tencent during the 2018-19 season and 21 million fans watched Game 6 of the 2019 Finals, according to NBA data.
The league also has more than 200 million followers on social media in China. In March, the league opened the second-largest NBA store outside of North America in Beijing.
A growing middle class with expendable income and massive technological growth that allows fans to stream games on phones and watch live on TV has allowed the NBA to thrive in China.
“It’s hard for us in the United States to imagine how much the NBA is involved in China and how much the people of China really like the NBA,” Wolohan said.
Silver conceded the economic impact-- as Chinese companies suspend business ties with the league and the Rockets -- is dramatic.He is trying to salvage relations in China, where more than 300 million people of the nation's 1.4 billion play basketball, according to the Chinese Basketball Association.
“I’m a realist as well, and I recognize that this issue may not die down so quickly,” Silver told reporters in Tokyoon Tuesday.
Already in Asia for preseason games in India and Japan, Silver will visit China this week and plans to meet with Chinese business leaders and Yao, who is "hot" right now, according to Silver. But Silver’s in a difficult position, trying to placate mainland China, which wants Morey fired, and championing U.S. and NBA values, such as free speech.
“We’ve seen how Adam Silver operates, and if both sides want something done, you’re going to find a compromise,” Isaac Benjamin, a crisis communication strategist at PRCG Sports, told USA TODAY Sports. “That might not mean you go around touting a win, but it means you’re going to have a beneficial partnership moving forward.”
After the NBA’s vague statement regarding Morey’s tweet fell flat and drew criticism in the U.S. and China on Monday, Silver left no ambiguity in a statement Tuesday.
“It is inevitable that people around the world – including from America and China – will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences,” Silver said.
“However, the NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way.”
He also acknowledged there is a cost to that position that the NBA is willing to absorb.
“I understand that there are consequences from that exercise of, in essence, his freedom of speech. We will have to live with those consequences,” Silver said.
While the NBA is at risk financially, so is China and its companies that are willing to spend money on the NBA to make money.
“The NBA is a big product to China,” Benjamin said. “China has been able to grow its basketball presence, and China wants to be associated with the NBA. There won’t be easy conversations. But there are plenty of organizations that get into these issues with China.”
There’s no denying basketball’s popularity in China. The game is huge and has been played there almost as long as it has been played in the U.S. Dr. James Naismith, who invented the game, helped introduce it to China on a missionary trip in the late 1800s.
Now, the NBA and its stars are on a similar mission, this time trying to preserve the lucrative relationship the love of basketball has brought both countries.
While some NBA players have prided themselves on refusing to shut up and dribble, will they follow that philosophy regarding China and Hong Kong and risk alienation and dollars?
“The players are already starting to look disingenuous,” said David Carter, a sports marketing consultant and executive director of the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. “On one hand, they are social justice warriors of a certain bend. But at the same time, they are quick to come out and talk about the support of China, which means Beijing and others view as the oppressors in this case. They are walking a fine line.”
Rockets star James Harden apologized to China in a press conference on Monday and on Tuesday, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who has an endorsement deal with Nike, said he believed the sides would "find a way to solve'' the situation. Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers, Golden State coach Steve Kerr and National Basketball Players Association president Chris Paul declined to comment on the situation until they knew more about it.
However, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich weighed in, as he often does on political topics.
“It wasn’t easy for him to say,” Popovich said of Silver. “He said that in an environment that is fraught with possible economic peril. He sides with the principles that we all hold dearly – or most of us did until the last three years – so I’m thrilled with what he said. The courage and leadership displayed is off the charts by comparison."
https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/coronavirus-nba-knicks-nets-work-with-chinese-official-donate-1m-surgical-masks-new-york/EY2ON6CWGVBLTMP5DCLGEJQTHI/
Coronavirus: NBA, Knicks, Nets work with Chinese official to donate 1M surgical masks to New York
By: MIchelle Ewing, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
Updated: April 5, 2020 - 4:41 AM
NEW YORK — The NBA and two professional basketball teams are working with a Chinese official to provide 1 million surgical masks to “essential workers” in New York.
According to Reuters, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the donation – a collaborative effort involving the league, the New York Knicks, the Brooklyn Nets and Chinese Consul General Huang Ping
“New York thanks you,” Cuomo tweeted Saturday afternoon. “We are beyond grateful for this gift of critically needed PPE.”
"Andrew Cuomo
@NYGovCuomo
NEW: The @NBA is contributing 1 million desperately needed surgical masks for New York's essential workers in collaboration with @nyknicks, @BrooklynNets and China's Consul General Huang Ping.
New York thanks you.
We are beyond grateful for this gift of critically needed PPE.
12:08 PM · Apr 4, 2020"
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nba-needs-china-revenue-growth-leverage-170102327.htmlIt has been widely reported that the league’s global revenue is closing in on $10 billion per year, which puts it very close to Major League Baseball’s $10 billion and change, and still a distance from the NFL’s $15 billion.
Within that, revenue coming from China is now nearly 10% of the pie, Yahoo Finance has learned. (Other reports have placed the NBA’s China revenue at 15%-20% of the global pie, but that range is overstated.)
More importantly, its business in China is growing at a faster rate than in the U.S., and only smaller emerging markets such as India, Africa, and Latin America have faster revenue growth rates, since they are building from a low base.
NBA China, the separate company the league set up in 2008 to manage its deals there, is now valued by the league at $5 billion, a figure first reported this month by Sports Business Journal and confirmed to Yahoo Finance by multiple sources. That’s a valuation akin to the ones that investment firms apply to private tech startups, not to be confused with the revenue the league is bringing in from China.
$5 billion is what the NBA thinks it could fetch if it ever spun that business off. Just one year ago, the valuation was $4 billion.
The league’s two biggest partners in China are Alibaba (BABA) and Tencent (TCEHY), China’s two largest tech companies by market cap. The NBA re-upped its existing deals with both of those partners this year—before the Morey tweet happened.
The new deal with Alibaba includes licensed NBA merchandise on Alibaba’s ecommerce sites (Alibaba had been selling licensed NBA merchandise on Tmall since 2012), plus a dedicated NBA section with original content and game highlights across Alibaba’s networks Tmall, Taobao, and Youku. That deal puts NBA content in front of 700 million Chinese consumers.
Alibaba executive Joe Tsai’s purchase last summer of the Brooklyn Nets (the 51% stake he did not already own) put a $2.35 billion valuation on the Nets, and likely boosts the price tag other teams can sell for as well. It also brought Alibaba even closer to the NBA, since Tsai is now a full team owner. (Tsai published a public letter on Facebook criticizing Morey’s Hong Kong tweet.)
Tencent has been the “official digital partner of the NBA in China” since 2015. The extended deal with Tencent includes live game broadcasts (Tencent is the exclusive provider of NBA League Pass in China) plus additional video content on Tencent’s extensive list of sites and apps, including QQ, WeChat, and Weishi (Tencent’s version of Vine). As part of the renewed deal, Tencent promised to “help the NBA expand its fanbase in China and provide the league’s global fanbase with new, customized interactive services.”
The league has said 490 million Chinese fans watched NBA games on Tencent during the 2018-2019 season, “nearly three times” the number that watched just four seasons earlier. That gives a rough sense of how fast the NBA’s fanbase in China is multiplying.
The Tencent deal has been widely reported as being worth $1.5 billion over the next five years, or $300 million per year, a number that sources close to the league confirm. That is more than twice the value of the previous deal signed in 2015, which was $700 million over five years. But the new Tencent contract has not actually kicked in yet, which makes the squabble prompted by the Morey tweet especially unlucky timing for the league. The value of the Alibaba deal to the NBA has not been reported.
The NBA also announced a content deal last year with ByteDance, the parent company of the wildly popular video app TikTok. That’s three new partnerships with Chinese tech names in the last 12 months.
NBA front office leadership and individual team executives see China as the most crucial growth market for the league to keep up its financial momentum.
“If you think about the revenues in America, the majority of revenues are fixed,” says one former NBA team executive speaking not for attribution. “The TV contract [with ESPN and TNT, extended through 2025] is set for another six years. Every team can grow its business organically with tickets and sponsorships, but only really at a modest clip. So when you think about the enterprise of the NBA, the growth potential is international, and within that, China stands the tallest.”
Indeed, NBA teams were just recently given a longer leash to make their own sponsorship deals in China thanks to a rule change just this year that freed up teams to sell sponsorships outside the U.S. Teams can now sell sponsorships in other countries (think China) for its team logos and marks, though they cannot do so domestically. (So, the New York Knicks can’t do a big marketing push with team signage in Texas, but can in Beijing.) The Washington Wizards were the first to act on the new rules, signing the first NBA team sponsorship deal in Japan.
A decade ago, Stephon Marbury was the singular example of an NBA player who had achieved mega-stardom in China. Now Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and many more have obsessive followings there. Klay Thompson and Gordon Hayward have deals with Chinese sneaker brand Anta; Dwyane Wade, CJ McCollum, and Michael Carter-Williams have deals with Chinese sneaker brand Li-Ning. Those deals bring personal revenue separate from the league, but the league loves and encourages them, since it boosts exposure for all. “There are tremendous opportunities for the players in China, and that trickles to the teams,” says the former team executive.
And the NBA’s China push isn’t just about the teams and leagues boosting revenue, it’s also about the individual players as global brands.
For now, China political tension is not something other U.S. pro leagues like the NFL have had to deal with; the NBA got there first, and is now navigating the benefits and the consequences. “The NBA, more so than any other league, is poised to continue its international growth” in China, says USC sports marketing professor David Carter. “The NBA and China will find a way to continue working together, even if doing so remains delicate.”
All of the financial metrics reinforce why the NBA can’t walk away from China, and why Silver must continue to play the friendly ambassador, even amid President Trump’s trade war and even as politicians have scored points by slamming the league for its chummy business ties in China.
Vice President Mike Pence this month said the NBA is “acting like a wholly owned subsidiary of China.” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in an interview with Yahoo Finance, dinged the league for its initial handling of the Morey tweet: “It was not the NBA’s finest hour, putting out one profuse apology after another,” though he conceded, “They have gotten better… after the first prostrations.”
The NBA is hardly the only American business trying to thrive in China while also navigating potential political blowback for being there. Apple, Nike, and Starbucks sales are booming in China. Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken heat multiple times over the past few years for actions aimed at pleasing Chinese regulators.
Gordon Chang, author of the book “The Coming Collapse of China,” says it’s no surprise that the NBA and other businesses are doubling down on China, but warns a reckoning is coming. “The Chinese economy is slumping fast, certainly not growing at the 6% pace they claimed in Q3,” Chang says. “When the Chinese economy falls apart, people are going to say, ‘Why the hell was the NBA in China in the first place?’ It’s a militant state, and anyone who touches that militant state is doing so at their own risk. So there is a reputational risk for the NBA, but financial gain in the short term. Businesses make decisions based on their pocketbook, and anyone who expects the NBA to stand up to China is being unrealistic.”
The Morey tweet situation unfolded amid the NBA preseason, and days before the Los Angeles Lakers played a preseason game in China. The regular season tipped off on Oct. 22, and since then, players have widely gone silent on the China issue. (After LeBron James criticized the Morey tweet and was roundly slammed, he said he would not comment further). As Bob Dorfman of Baker Street Advertising says, “The strategy seems to be, Let’s just keep quiet and the situation will go away. It’s freedom of speech vs. the power of the dollar. And right now, the power of the dollar seems to be winning.”
China has 1.3 billion people, and the NBA has said 500 million of them are NBA fans; the league is set on converting the rest.
The league is targeting India, with a population of 1.37 billion, as its next growth market. But building that business is far more challenging than growing in China, since India has a per capita income of $150 per month and does not have a long history of loving basketball. On the other hand, the NBA counts India as its largest Jr. NBA program (a partnership with the Reliance Foundation) in the world.
The NBA is building in India using the blueprint in Africa, where it first opened an office in 2010 and played its first games in 2015. This year the NBA announced it will launch Basketball Africa League (BAL), in partnership with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) in 2020; the league will start with 12 African teams.
Nike (NKE) is already on board as the BAL’s official apparel outfitter—because American sponsors see the same potential dollars in these emerging markets as the NBA does.
"That's why I don't have a sneaker deal. 'Cause if you say something people don't like they take your ****in' shoes off. If Martin Luther King had a sneaker deal, we'd still be on the back of the bus. It's true, the Nike execs would come up like "Hi, Martin. Uh...we need you to tone down the civil rights talk and the stuff about black people being humans. It's upsetting our Southern distributors." [Chappelle, speaking as Martin Luther King, Jr.] "But I don't understand. I thought that's why I had a sneaker deal in the first place!" [Chappelle, speaking as a Nike executive] "Not quite. Really it's a walking shoe and we like the marching, but the...try to understand."