OpinionTencent’s NBA crisis: Chinese media giant now bloodletting as Houston Rockets games still banned

By banning Houston Rockets games, Tencent is hurting itself amidst a furious streaming war

Mixing politics with the Communist Party line is proving to be a disaster for the media giant

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Did you catch the Rockets playing the Clippers? Not on Tencent that’s for sure. Photo: AP

Published: 8:00am, 15 Nov 2019Updated: 8:32pm, 16 Nov 2019

On Thursday, fans around the world were able to watch James Harden score an amazing 47 points as his Houston Rockets, along with Russell Westbrook, beat Kawhi Leonard’s Los Angeles Clippers’ 102-93 in one of the NBA’s biggest marquee matchups of the season.

That is, unless you tried to watch the game on Tencent, one of China’s largest and most powerful media companies which recently signed a US$1.5 billion deal for exclusive streaming rights to broadcast NBA games to its hundreds of millions of subscribers. Why then, couldn’t subscribers watch this enthralling showdown of superstars and likely play-off contenders?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you know this story. Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey set off an international firestorm with a single tweet when he voiced his support for Hong Kong’s protesters. The Chinese government did not take kindly to this and madness ensued, ensnaring countless people, organisations and companies in a complete mess.

Now the NBA season is well under way and the dust has largely settled on this controversy, but one company in particular looks like they’ve been left holding the short end of the stick. Tencent, who recently posted revenue expectations below analysts’ forecasts for the third quarter, has to deal with the leftovers of a debacle that has moved on without it.

Tencent is having a rough year towing the party line over profits. Photo: Reuters

This is a problem that doesn’t seem to be going away.

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} By banning Houston Rockets games, Tencent is hurting itself amidst a furious streaming war Mixing politics with the Communist Party line is proving to be a disaster for the media giant

By banning Houston Rockets games, Tencent is hurting itself amidst a furious streaming war

Mixing politics with the Communist Party line is proving to be a disaster for the media giant