NBA fouling out in China
‘Fairly dramatic’ lo$$es
The NBA has suffered “substantial” losses in China due to Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s tweet in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, league commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday.
During an appearance at the “Time 100 Health Summit” in lower Manhattan, Silver was asked whether the NBA was willing to absorb the cost of standing by Morey despite demands by the Chinese government and business partners that he be fired.
“Not only willing, but we are,” Silver said. “The losses have already been substantial. Our games are not back on the air in China as we speak and we’ll see what happens next.”
In response to the calls for Morey’s firing, “We said there’s no chance that’s happening. There’s no chance we’ll even discipline him,” Silver added.
American professional basketball is wildly popular in China, where Silver said more than 600 million people “watched a portion of an NBA game” last season.
The league’s “NBA China” business, launched more than a decade ago, was valued at more than $4 billion last year. It signed a five-year, $1.5 billion contract extension in July for China’s Tencent Internet company to show games and other content on its digital platforms, according to Forbes.
Silver, who was interviewed by Robin Roberts of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” also said he might have been “trying too hard to be a diplomat” with his initial response to Morey’s since-deleted Oct. 4 tweet.
In an Oct. 7 statement, the NBA said that Morey’s views “have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable.”
A Chinese-language version also said that the league was “extremely disappointed” by the “inappropriate” tweet, which “severely hurt the feelings of Chinese fans.”
“I felt we had made enormous progress in terms of building cultural exchanges with the Chinese people and, again, I have regret that much of that was lost and I’m not even sure where we’ll go from here,” Silver said.
“But the direct answer to your question is that the financial consequences have been and may continue to be fairly dramatic.”
Silver didn’t address the controversy over Lakers superstar LeBron James — who on Monday criticized Morey’s support of the Hong Kong protesters — before Roberts shifted the interview to the NBA’s new program to support the mental health of its players.
James has come under fire from US lawmakers and others who have accused him of pandering to the repressive Chinese government, with some saying he’s being motivated by financial concerns.