NBA’s chief admits the China crisis set off by Morey’s tweet led to ‘substantial’ losses in a market it’s spent decades cultivating

The NBA is the most popular US league in the world’s most populous country – with some 800 million Chinese viewers – and its business there is already a billion-dollar enterprise

Tencent Holdings has a US$1.5 billion, five-year deal to stream league games online in China

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The NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers playing against the Brooklyn Nets in Shenzhen, on October 12, 2019. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:48am, 18 Oct 2019Updated: 10:49am, 18 Oct 2019

The National Basketball Association’s crisis in China, triggered by the Houston Rockets general manager tweeting support for Hong Kong protesters, has already cost the league “substantial” losses.

“The financial consequences may go on and be fairly dramatic,” Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday at the Time 100 Health Summit in New York. But the league is willing to take on the costs to support free expression, he said.

The NBA was plunged into turmoil earlier this month after the Rockets’ Daryl Morey posted the tweet in support of pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. He soon deleted the message, but China took umbrage and the NBA’s sponsors in the country cut ties with the league. Silver further inflamed tensions at the time by supporting Morey’s right to free speech, telling reporters that the league wouldn’t police what people can say.

Silver said that Chinese interests asked for Morey to be fired for the tweet.

Post Magazine Feature: The tweet that threatened to derail NBA’s decades-long relationship with China, its most lucrative overseas market

“We said there’s no chance that’s happening – there’s no chance we’ll even discipline him,” said Silver, a long-time NBA executive who became commissioner in 2014.

It all happened on the eve of two NBA preseason games that were played in China. Though they went ahead as planned, local broadcasts were cancelled in China and partners pulled out.