Silver wants to turn NBA into gold in China
Bringing NBA preseason games to China has been a slam dunk for the popular league, but NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been looking at even greater plans to boost its game here.
With the Charlotte Hornets beating the Los Angeles Clippers 106-94 in a preseason game at the sold-out Shenzhen Universiade Center on Sunday, the North American league has once again shown just how popular it is with wildly enthusiastic fans, increased media exposure and growing sponsorship interest.
However, providing more authentic NBA experiences to Chinese fans over a large geographical area and a huge time difference remain challenges for the NBA as it tries to deepen its roots in its biggest overseas market.
“Ultimately for me, the greatest challenge is how we translate the live experience of this terrific product that is played almost exclusively in North America to fans in China,” Silver told China Daily at a roundtable interview in Shenzhen on Saturday.
Since its first exhibition game featuring Yao Ming’s Houston Rockets against the Sacramento Kings in China in 2004, the NBA has brought 20 official preseason games, including Clippers-Hornets Game 2 on Wednesday in Shanghai, to China.
Thanks to innovative virtual reality technology, fans will be able to watch a “live” game at the Staples
Adam Silver is flanked by Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer (left) and Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan before the Los Angeles Clippers and the Charlotte Hornets game as part of the 2015 NBA Global Games China at the Shenzhen Universiade Center on Sunday. Center in LA or Madison Square Garden in New York in their living rooms in the near future, but that is still some way off.
“There will be a day when fans in China can experience an NBA game as if he or she was sitting courtside (in the US). We will replicate that feeling when you are in the arena with 20,000 other fans while you are actually at home,” said Silver, who took office last February, succeeding former longtime commissioner David Stern.
The new broadcasting technology is being developed by Tencent Holdings Limited, the league’s exclusive digital partner in China through a five-year deal, but Silver did not reveal when it will be launched.
The futuristic in-arena simula- tion might sound a bit far-fetched, but the proposal to change the start of some games to accommodate the massive China market is not.
Silver revealed on Saturday that the league has discussed the possibility of playing some games at about 10 am on the east coast, which would undoubtedly increase the league’s viewership in Asia.
“In this case, the main interest is to give fans the ability to watch games in prime time during the evening here. I think we will experiment with it at some point to get a sense of how much it will increase viewership.
“I will say I am a little concerned about our players’ performance levels because their body clocks are used to playing in the evening or afternoon. But as viewership contin-
guard Jeremy Lin dribbles down court against the Los Angeles Clippers during the first half of the 2015 NBA Global Games in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Sunday. Lin scored 16 points and dished out four assists as the Hornets beat the Clippers 106-94.
ues to grow here, it’s something inevitably that we will take a stronger look at,” he said.
The league’s increasing presence on all media platforms in China seems to provide a compelling argument for such an adjustment.
The 2014-15 NBA season was watched by more than 690 million television viewers in China, while the average number of viewers per
game during the playoffs reached 2.3 million on Tencent across all platforms — a 160 percent increase over the previous season.
The NBA has more than 101 million followers on the social media platforms of Tencent and Sina, while 173 players have registered personal accounts on those sites to stay connected with their Chinese fans.