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The NBA really needs to grow a spine on this one. They have nothing to lose but incremental profits and in the long run China will lose. It will just be one mo

by tw04 7y ago

The NBA really needs to grow a spine on this one. They have nothing to lose but incremental profits and in the long run China will lose. It will just be one more reminder for the populace that their current government restricts them from luxuries the rest of the world gets to experience. And if that doesn't bother them, good riddance I guess, it's not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA, ever.

munk-a 7y ago
They have everything to lose and it's quite sane for them to back down from this fight. The NBA isn't our government, just because our politicians are spineless and fawning doesn't mean companies need to take up the fight. That all said it'd be awesome if they chose to push back even though it's entirely destructive to themselves.
- ellius 7y ago
  Why is it any less the responsibility of American businessmen than American politicians? We're a nation of free people, and we all share in both the benefits and responsibilities of freedom. You don't get to pretend to be an American and then put your head in the sand and say, "Oh I'm just a businessman." If that's your first loyalty then fine, but at least be straight about it and don't try to have it both ways with this "we love free expression but the dollars, sorry" crap.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    It absolutely is the responsibility of American businessmen, but the question wasn't about businessmen it was about the NBA - the NBA is a corporation with no fealty, loyalty or citizenship within any country in the world. I think in America there has been a hard push to prevent government control into various companies - just because this scenario is about decrying a foreign entity instead of the US flexing power domestically (i.e. via warrantless wiretapping) doesn't change the fact that, at a basic level, it's the same exact problem. Lastly, there are no American corporations, nothing should be given to them because they're assumed to be American and nothing should be expected of them - anything required of them should be encoded into law so that one corporation can't exploit the morally correct decision of another corporation as a weakness.
    - ellius 7y ago
      That's a nice theory and all, but if the NBA really believes that then its representatives should stop pretending to care about free speech.
      - munk-a 7y ago
        They, like many companies, would love to have their cake and eat it too - they want the positive PR from looking like "A Real American Company" with patriotism and all that - while actually having no obligation toward (and making no effort to support) any given country.
reaperducer 7y ago
While I agree that the NBA has stand up and to do the right thing, I'm not sure that "incremental" is the correct description of the league's profits. I read an article very recently (NY Times, maybe?) that laid out the numbers, and the amount of money the NBA earns in China dwarfs its U.S. revenue. not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league It already has basketball leagues. And considering that China has exported star players to the NBA, it's certainly a possibility.
- wtn 7y ago
  NBA annual TV revenue: $4B China (CCTV & Tencent) versus $24B USA (ESPN & TNT). Those numbers are outdated and incomplete, but basically describe the relative market size. Maybe you are thinking of rate of growth. EDIT: As tanilama pointed out my numbers are wrong. The USA (ESPN & TNT) TV deal is about ~$2.6B per year. The Tencent streaming deal is ~$1.5B over 5 years. I don't know about CCTV.
  - tanilama 7y ago
    $24B USA is for 10 years? https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/nba-tv-deal-how-the-new-24b-contract-stacks-up-against-other-leagues-1.2790143 https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/nba-tv-deal-how-the... Annually it says the revenue is 2.6B. Not sure how much revenue they are making from China on a yearly basis (Tencent's contract is 5 years).
  - cat199 7y ago
    > basically describe the relative market size. pretty sure that basically describes the relative market valuation - given income differences/relative cache of the two different leagues, market size vs valuation would be vastly different.
- tw04 7y ago
  >the amount of money the NBA earns in China dwarfs its U.S. revenue. Source? >It already has basketball leagues. I guess it's a good thing I didn't say they don't. Partial quoting to try to make a point where there isn't one isn't very cool. >And considering that China has exported star players to the NBA, it's certainly a possibility. It's exported exactly one star: yao Ming, and one slightly above average player in Jeremy Lin. And those two were so far apart they never played in the NBA at the same time. If you think one star every 30 years is going to be good enough to replace an NBA that produces multiple stars every other year.... I guess pass whatever you're smoking my way.
ivankolev 7y ago
They are taking a stance: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/media/nba-adam-silver/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/media/nba-adam-silver/index.h...
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  Woah, that's quite a pleasant surprise. Not what I expected.
- munificent 7y ago
  My I'm just feeling cynical, but this just sounds to me like an easy way to have it both ways: 1. Placate the US by putting out a public statement saying "We support freedom of speech for our people." 2. Placate China by using a backchannel to ensure that no one in the NBA actually uses this nominal freedom to say something that hurts China's feelings. Actually standing up would require supporting a statement that had been said instead of offerring vague support for future statements which may or may not ever occur.
  - wuliwong 7y ago
    You are just theorizing that #2 is happening with no evidence.
    - sverige 7y ago
      The evidence is that they didn't support the original tweet that caused all the ruckus, and there hasn't been a flood of tweets or other expressions of support for HK by other NBA people since the NBA made the statement.
      - joelx 7y ago
        We should boycott the NBA.
        hkitdog 7y ago
danem 7y ago
> it's not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA, ever. Why not? Is it inconceivable that in the future the CBA will be able to compete with the NBA for top talent? I guarantee that down the road a future Zion Williamson will choose to play in China over New Orleans. This won't be in the near future mind you, but as the Chinese economy grows, and as basketball gets more popular, I don't see why this couldn't be the future.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ivankolev 7y ago
  Not likely, players (not superstars) can already make more money in Euroleague yet everyone given a choice wants to play at the highest level, which is NBA. Superstars even more so, Kawhi Leonard won a title in Toronto but chose to go back home in LA, for less guaranteed money.
  - IllogicalLogic 7y ago
    You may overestimate how valuable western eyeballs are, a billion people can recreate this industry with government support quite easily.
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      You may overestimate how valuable those billion viewers are, most of them don't have the money to buy anything. Also, there are a great many cultural and economic reasons that foreign players generally avoid playing in China's existing professional sports league. Political oppression is just one of those reasons.
      - IllogicalLogic 7y ago
        I don't buy that idea, western institutions that we generally think of as unique are quite easy to duplicate in Asia if the focus is put there.
xlc0212 7y ago
> They have nothing to lose but incremental profits and in the long run China will lose. I don’t understand this. They could lost all their market in China which is not a small number and in return, long-term financially, nothing. It is not like Chinese people can’t live without it. There are more than enough entertainments for Chinese people to enjoy.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  Basketball is popular in China. The NBA is the premier league. It doesn't need China. If you want to see the best or play with the best, it will be the NBA. If the CCP (China Communist Party) wants to spoil the entertainment of the citizenry, that's their problem. The NBA can go right back into China whenever the winds change. On the other hand, if the NBA doesn't stand up to China, a large part of their core audience will find something else to do.
  - xlc0212 7y ago
    This is another thing I feel uneasy about, this is just a basketball league, why does it have to force people to pick a side?
    - 14 7y ago
      Well technically you don't have to choose a side you can choose to do nothing which is its own side in a way and has meaning and consequence to the general population. People know that rich and famous people, or people in power really have the most sway in matters. So we mere laypeople can decide that you either choose a side or you have chosen to side against us. If you were looking at a person who had the ability to help, but choose to do nothing can you not see how people can be upset with them? Again sure you can choose to do nothing but I won't like you, I might stop supporting you, or I may even work against you.
    - unityByFreedom 7y ago
      Who upped the ante? One guy who tweeted something, or a government who blocked a whole industry? NBA isn't forcing anything. They would continue showing their programming in China if it were not blocked.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
What do you mean? Adam Silver wrote a statement supporting Morey's right to free speech, and then doubled down on it after receiving flak for his free speech support.
- fooblitzky 7y ago
  I think the point was the NBA needs to take a stance on HK itself, in support of democracy. "We support free speech" is a cop-out, because China is happy for you to support free speech, as long as you don't say anything they don't like. It would be a stronger stance to say, "Actually, we think Morey was right", especially if it's going to cost them money to do so.
  - oarabbus_ 7y ago
    > Adam Silver has released statement on league’s relationship status with China, reading in part: “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.” https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1181497808563658752 https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1181497808563658752 Really I don't know what more you're expecting. This is a strong stance.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    I don't think the NBA needs to take a stance on HK. It literally has nothing to do with them. I think it would be pretty cool if they did come out publicly in support of the protesters, but I don't think they have any kind of moral or business imperative to do so.
tzm 7y ago
Agreed. From my view, the NBA is way too popular in China to outright ban.
- kurk 7y ago
  Consider last example of Korean TV shows? They are once popular in China before THAAD deployed in South Korea.
hktruth 7y ago
I think focusing on the NBA and China misses the bigger issue that affects everyone. What if Daryl Morey had tweeted that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman? There's no doubt he would have been fired and deplatformed faster than greased lightning... Social media is making it hard for individuals to keep their personal thoughts separate from their work. Not sure what the answer is. Everybody chill?
- pishpash 7y ago
  Right, this is not a freedom of speech issue because that has been long gone with cancel culture. This is a case of whether cancel culture applies internationally, which is difficult for an American corporation operating internationally. With Trump's decoupling and isolationism, more of these issues will come up under the guise of ideology or values, but which are not actually about these.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > What if Daryl Morey had tweeted that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman? You wouldn't see countries threatening to ban the entire NBA. > There's no doubt he would have been fired and deplatformed faster than greased lightning... Sign me up for a lot of doubt!
kelnos 7y ago
> it's not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA, ever. Even if they did, so what? There's certainly room in the world for quite a few basketball leagues.
mirimir 7y ago
It seems plausible that Hong Kong is actually a substantial third-rail issue for the mainland population. And that it doesn't just reflect Chinese government propaganda. If that's the case, profit-driven pandering to their feelings is arguably no different than profit-driven pandering to the feelings of other audiences. I mean, after all, Hong Kong was occupied by the British for over 100 years. And it played a huge role in the opium trade. So I can imagine how it could be a substantial third-rail issue.
jjuel 7y ago
Isn't it easy for you to say when you risk losing nothing on this matter? If your business were about to lose a big and growing market wouldn't you do all you could to keep that market happy whether you agree with them or not? If not my guess is your business wouldn't last very long.

by tw04 7y ago

munk-a 7y ago

They have everything to lose and it's quite sane for them to back down from this fight. The NBA isn't our government, just because our politicians are spineless and fawning doesn't mean companies need to take up the fight. That all said it'd be awesome if they chose to push back even though it's entirely destructive to themselves.

ellius 7y ago
Why is it any less the responsibility of American businessmen than American politicians? We're a nation of free people, and we all share in both the benefits and responsibilities of freedom. You don't get to pretend to be an American and then put your head in the sand and say, "Oh I'm just a businessman." If that's your first loyalty then fine, but at least be straight about it and don't try to have it both ways with this "we love free expression but the dollars, sorry" crap.
- munk-a 7y ago
  It absolutely is the responsibility of American businessmen, but the question wasn't about businessmen it was about the NBA - the NBA is a corporation with no fealty, loyalty or citizenship within any country in the world. I think in America there has been a hard push to prevent government control into various companies - just because this scenario is about decrying a foreign entity instead of the US flexing power domestically (i.e. via warrantless wiretapping) doesn't change the fact that, at a basic level, it's the same exact problem. Lastly, there are no American corporations, nothing should be given to them because they're assumed to be American and nothing should be expected of them - anything required of them should be encoded into law so that one corporation can't exploit the morally correct decision of another corporation as a weakness.
  - ellius 7y ago
    That's a nice theory and all, but if the NBA really believes that then its representatives should stop pretending to care about free speech.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      They, like many companies, would love to have their cake and eat it too - they want the positive PR from looking like "A Real American Company" with patriotism and all that - while actually having no obligation toward (and making no effort to support) any given country.

reaperducer 7y ago

While I agree that the NBA has stand up and to do the right thing, I'm not sure that "incremental" is the correct description of the league's profits. I read an article very recently (NY Times, maybe?) that laid out the numbers, and the amount of money the NBA earns in China dwarfs its U.S. revenue. not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league It already has basketball leagues. And considering that China has exported star players to the NBA, it's certainly a possibility.

wtn 7y ago
NBA annual TV revenue: $4B China (CCTV & Tencent) versus $24B USA (ESPN & TNT). Those numbers are outdated and incomplete, but basically describe the relative market size. Maybe you are thinking of rate of growth. EDIT: As tanilama pointed out my numbers are wrong. The USA (ESPN & TNT) TV deal is about ~$2.6B per year. The Tencent streaming deal is ~$1.5B over 5 years. I don't know about CCTV.
- tanilama 7y ago
  $24B USA is for 10 years? https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/nba-tv-deal-how-the-new-24b-contract-stacks-up-against-other-leagues-1.2790143 https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/nba-tv-deal-how-the... Annually it says the revenue is 2.6B. Not sure how much revenue they are making from China on a yearly basis (Tencent's contract is 5 years).
- cat199 7y ago
  > basically describe the relative market size. pretty sure that basically describes the relative market valuation - given income differences/relative cache of the two different leagues, market size vs valuation would be vastly different.
tw04 7y ago
>the amount of money the NBA earns in China dwarfs its U.S. revenue. Source? >It already has basketball leagues. I guess it's a good thing I didn't say they don't. Partial quoting to try to make a point where there isn't one isn't very cool. >And considering that China has exported star players to the NBA, it's certainly a possibility. It's exported exactly one star: yao Ming, and one slightly above average player in Jeremy Lin. And those two were so far apart they never played in the NBA at the same time. If you think one star every 30 years is going to be good enough to replace an NBA that produces multiple stars every other year.... I guess pass whatever you're smoking my way.

ivankolev 7y ago

They are taking a stance: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/media/nba-adam-silver/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/media/nba-adam-silver/index.h...

NotSammyHagar 7y ago
Woah, that's quite a pleasant surprise. Not what I expected.
munificent 7y ago
My I'm just feeling cynical, but this just sounds to me like an easy way to have it both ways: 1. Placate the US by putting out a public statement saying "We support freedom of speech for our people." 2. Placate China by using a backchannel to ensure that no one in the NBA actually uses this nominal freedom to say something that hurts China's feelings. Actually standing up would require supporting a statement that had been said instead of offerring vague support for future statements which may or may not ever occur.
- wuliwong 7y ago
  You are just theorizing that #2 is happening with no evidence.
  - sverige 7y ago
    The evidence is that they didn't support the original tweet that caused all the ruckus, and there hasn't been a flood of tweets or other expressions of support for HK by other NBA people since the NBA made the statement.
    - joelx 7y ago
      We should boycott the NBA.
      - hkitdog 7y ago

danem 7y ago

> it's not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA, ever. Why not? Is it inconceivable that in the future the CBA will be able to compete with the NBA for top talent? I guarantee that down the road a future Zion Williamson will choose to play in China over New Orleans. This won't be in the near future mind you, but as the Chinese economy grows, and as basketball gets more popular, I don't see why this couldn't be the future.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ivankolev 7y ago
Not likely, players (not superstars) can already make more money in Euroleague yet everyone given a choice wants to play at the highest level, which is NBA. Superstars even more so, Kawhi Leonard won a title in Toronto but chose to go back home in LA, for less guaranteed money.
- IllogicalLogic 7y ago
  You may overestimate how valuable western eyeballs are, a billion people can recreate this industry with government support quite easily.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    You may overestimate how valuable those billion viewers are, most of them don't have the money to buy anything. Also, there are a great many cultural and economic reasons that foreign players generally avoid playing in China's existing professional sports league. Political oppression is just one of those reasons.
    - IllogicalLogic 7y ago
      I don't buy that idea, western institutions that we generally think of as unique are quite easy to duplicate in Asia if the focus is put there.

xlc0212 7y ago

> They have nothing to lose but incremental profits and in the long run China will lose. I don’t understand this. They could lost all their market in China which is not a small number and in return, long-term financially, nothing. It is not like Chinese people can’t live without it. There are more than enough entertainments for Chinese people to enjoy.

tomohawk 7y ago
Basketball is popular in China. The NBA is the premier league. It doesn't need China. If you want to see the best or play with the best, it will be the NBA. If the CCP (China Communist Party) wants to spoil the entertainment of the citizenry, that's their problem. The NBA can go right back into China whenever the winds change. On the other hand, if the NBA doesn't stand up to China, a large part of their core audience will find something else to do.
- xlc0212 7y ago
  This is another thing I feel uneasy about, this is just a basketball league, why does it have to force people to pick a side?
  - 14 7y ago
    Well technically you don't have to choose a side you can choose to do nothing which is its own side in a way and has meaning and consequence to the general population. People know that rich and famous people, or people in power really have the most sway in matters. So we mere laypeople can decide that you either choose a side or you have chosen to side against us. If you were looking at a person who had the ability to help, but choose to do nothing can you not see how people can be upset with them? Again sure you can choose to do nothing but I won't like you, I might stop supporting you, or I may even work against you.
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    Who upped the ante? One guy who tweeted something, or a government who blocked a whole industry? NBA isn't forcing anything. They would continue showing their programming in China if it were not blocked.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

What do you mean? Adam Silver wrote a statement supporting Morey's right to free speech, and then doubled down on it after receiving flak for his free speech support.

fooblitzky 7y ago
I think the point was the NBA needs to take a stance on HK itself, in support of democracy. "We support free speech" is a cop-out, because China is happy for you to support free speech, as long as you don't say anything they don't like. It would be a stronger stance to say, "Actually, we think Morey was right", especially if it's going to cost them money to do so.
- oarabbus_ 7y ago
  > Adam Silver has released statement on league’s relationship status with China, reading in part: “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.” https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1181497808563658752 https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1181497808563658752 Really I don't know what more you're expecting. This is a strong stance.
- kelnos 7y ago
  I don't think the NBA needs to take a stance on HK. It literally has nothing to do with them. I think it would be pretty cool if they did come out publicly in support of the protesters, but I don't think they have any kind of moral or business imperative to do so.

tzm 7y ago

Agreed. From my view, the NBA is way too popular in China to outright ban.

kurk 7y ago
Consider last example of Korean TV shows? They are once popular in China before THAAD deployed in South Korea.

hktruth 7y ago

I think focusing on the NBA and China misses the bigger issue that affects everyone. What if Daryl Morey had tweeted that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman? There's no doubt he would have been fired and deplatformed faster than greased lightning... Social media is making it hard for individuals to keep their personal thoughts separate from their work. Not sure what the answer is. Everybody chill?

pishpash 7y ago
Right, this is not a freedom of speech issue because that has been long gone with cancel culture. This is a case of whether cancel culture applies internationally, which is difficult for an American corporation operating internationally. With Trump's decoupling and isolationism, more of these issues will come up under the guise of ideology or values, but which are not actually about these.
Dylan16807 7y ago
> What if Daryl Morey had tweeted that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman? You wouldn't see countries threatening to ban the entire NBA. > There's no doubt he would have been fired and deplatformed faster than greased lightning... Sign me up for a lot of doubt!

kelnos 7y ago

> it's not like China is going to come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA, ever. Even if they did, so what? There's certainly room in the world for quite a few basketball leagues.

mirimir 7y ago

It seems plausible that Hong Kong is actually a substantial third-rail issue for the mainland population. And that it doesn't just reflect Chinese government propaganda. If that's the case, profit-driven pandering to their feelings is arguably no different than profit-driven pandering to the feelings of other audiences. I mean, after all, Hong Kong was occupied by the British for over 100 years. And it played a huge role in the opium trade. So I can imagine how it could be a substantial third-rail issue.

jjuel 7y ago

Isn't it easy for you to say when you risk losing nothing on this matter? If your business were about to lose a big and growing market wouldn't you do all you could to keep that market happy whether you agree with them or not? If not my guess is your business wouldn't last very long.