The lucrative relationship between America’s National Basketball Association (NBA) and China is growing increasingly strained after a team manager tweeted his support for the Hong Kong protesters.
The reaction from China has resulted in a nervous few weeks for the basketball league, which relies on Chinese money for between 10% and 15% of its revenue.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said: “There have already been fairly dramatic consequences from that tweet,” reports CBS News.
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He added later: “I understand that there are consequences from that exercise of, in essence, freedom of speech and we will have to live with those consequences,” says Forbes.
The demonstrations in Hong Kong began months ago in opposition to proposed legislation allowing extradition of people from the territory to the Chinese mainland. They have since grown into wider pro-democracy, anti-government protests.
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What happened?
On 4 October, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted a message of support to anti-government demonstrators, saying: “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”
China’s response was swift, with the Chinese consulate in Houston releasing a statement expressing “strong dissatisfaction” with the quickly deleted tweet, adding “anybody with conscience would support the efforts made by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to safeguard Hong Kong’s social stability.”
What has the wider reaction been from China?
The political and financial fallout of the NBA’s clash with China has already seen Chinese sponsors withdrawing huge amounts of money in advertising cash from the league.
China’s response could cost the Houston Rockets around $25m in sponsorship money this season alone, reports The New York Times.
Multiple NBA events and exhibition matches in China have been cancelled, and the one game that did go ahead was stripped of all sponsorship, media sessions for both teams were cancelled, and the game was taken off Chinese state TV.
Tencent, the NBA’s exclusive digital partner in China, said it will cease business operations with the Rockets, while Chinese sportswear brand Li-Ning said it was suspending business ties with the NBA and its players, reports CBS Sports.
However, China is now beginning to “tamp down public anger” after “three days of fanning nationalistic outrage”, fearing that too much fighting could damage the country’s image ahead of the 2022 winter Olympics in China, says The New York Times.
What about in the US?
Silver released an official statement days after the tweet, saying Morey’s words may “have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable”.
The NBA’s most famous player, LeBron James, criticised MIT graduate Morey for not being “educated” on the matter: “I don't want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn't educated on the situation at hand and he spoke,” reports Business Insider.
“And so many people could have been harmed, not just financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually.
“So just be careful what we tweet and what we say and what we do, even though yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that too,” he added.
One Twitter user replied: “‘Uneducated’ in this case translates to ‘Daryl didn’t think about how it would affect my shoe contract;’ it does not translate to ‘Daryl doesn’t understand geopolitics’.”
James’s comments will shock many, especially as he has been an outspoken voice on social issues and human rights, including police brutality in the US, reports The Guardian.
The makers of South Park offered a mock apology to China after the NBA was seen to condemn Morey’s comments: “Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom.”
Members of the US Congress wrote a letter to Silver last week calling for the NBA to suspend its relationship with China until Chinese “government-controlled broadcasters and government-controlled commercial sponsors end their boycott of the NBA activities and the selective treatment of the Houston Rockets”.
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