NBA-China relations returning to normal after CCTV brings back live coverage for game five of Finals

If you’re only going to watch one basketball game a year then a potentially decisive game five of the NBA Finals seems a good choice.

That’s the one Chinese state broadcaster made on Saturday morning, screening its first NBA game since preseason a year ago. Fans got lucky with a thriller between the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers, the Heat winning 111-108 to take the series to a game six in the Florida bubble on Sunday.

They stopped showing games in reaction to Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s tweet supporting Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters.

CCTV started by pulling the broadcasts for the preseason NBA China Games between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets last October and stood firm throughout the season.

They reiterated their point in May when the NBA was among the global sporting leagues to be shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“China Central Television refutes rumours that it would restore streaming NBA games, reiterating its consistent stance on national sovereignty,” it patriotically stated.

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This looked like the end of a relationship that began in the 1980s with then NBA commissioner David Stern travelling to Beijing. He hung around the lobby of CCTV to press NBA tapes into the hands of executives who were unwilling to meet him.

In a move that showed great foresight, Stern gave away the rights when they were earning millions in other territories.

The deal actually cost the NBA money. Having agreed to split the advertising but failing to secure any, Stern sent a cheque to China anyway for their “half” and that investment paid off in the long run as the China market is worth billions and is the largest outside the US.

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Getting the games on CCTV was a large part of that and it paid off in other ways. NBA legend Yao Ming has spoken of the importance of watching the 1994 NBA Finals as a 14-year-old, the first year they were broadcast live rather than on a tape delay.

Yao’s arrival in the NBA with the Houston Rockets raised the NBA’s profile even further and the partnership with CCTV went from strength to strength.

Then the relationship of 30-odd years unravelled after Morey’s tweet and threatened to stay that way until Friday’s statement.

CCTV’s about-face is about face – they may have backed down but it is framed in a way they do not lose any.

They have held firm for a year but as their statement suggested the return of the NBA to terrestrial television is reward for the NBA’s good behaviour.

“During the recent Chinese National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, the NBA sent their well wishes to fans in China,” CCTV said in a statement. “We also took note of the league has been continuously delivering goodwill, particularly making positive contributions to Chinese people‘s fight against Covid-19 pandemic.”

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The league gave medical equipment worth 18.5 million yuan (US$2.72 million) to hospitals in Wuhan since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, domestic media reported.

Fair play to the NBA. They have their critics, particularly in the US over their relationship with China, but they have not given in. Morey is in a job, despite Chinese state media outlet Global Times calling for the NBA to “properly handle” him in May.

The NBA have instead handled their business, a business which has taken an estimated US$400 million hit in China according to commissioner Adam Silver in February.

Last month they opened the world’s biggest NBA store in Guangzhou, this last week they got 4,000 fans together in Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz Arena. Now they are back on television too. Just as they predicted.

Stern, who died on New Year’s Day, said last year he expected “we would go back to business as usual”, as it would not be smart for China to end its relationship with the NBA. His successor Silver was confident back in February that the NBA would return to Chinese screens.

“Our games have not returned to CCTV, the government broadcaster,” Silver said at the NBA All-Star Weekend. “My sense is they will at some point in the future. We are not pressing them. It’s a decision that is outside of certainly our control and I’m often not even sure where that decision lies.

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“I know that, from the data we look at, there continues to be enormous interest for the NBA in China,” Silver said. “And my sense is that there will be a return to normalcy fairly soon, but I can’t say exactly when, when it comes to CCTV.”

There is an argument that CCTV overreacted by decreeing a blackout – just as they did with Arsenal footballer Mesut Ozil and with the English Premier League during its fallout with China rights holder PP Sports – but had to stick to their guns after being so public.

That’s over now and everyone’s a winner, just in time to see who will be crowned the winner in the NBA Finals.

A year passed from Morey’s swiftly deleted tweet last Sunday and it is now business as usual for the NBA in China. The question now is when does life return to normal for the Houston Rockets?