Following a year-long ban on broadcasts of NBA games, CCTV – the major state-owned media network in China – will air Game 5 of the NBA Finals, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst writes.
CCTV has aired NBA games since the early 1990s, per Windhorst, but pulled them from their scheduled for the 2019/20 season following Daryl Morey‘s tweet in support of Hong Kong protestors last fall.
For most of the year, CCTV’s stance was that it wouldn’t resume showing NBA games as long as Morey remained unpunished for his tweet. However, the network’s statement today stated that the NBA’s role in fighting COVID-19 in China played a part in the decision to resume live broadcasts. According to Windhorst, the league donated over $1MM and medical equipment to China earlier this year.
If the CCTV’s resumption of NBA broadcasts is a permanent decision rather than a temporary one, it would be good news for the league, which lost a significant source of revenue when the network – along with Chinese streaming giant Tencent – stopped airing games last fall. Tencent resumed its broadcasts shortly after the initial boycott, but the company’s relationship with the NBA has remained tenuous throughout the last year.
Estimates have indicated that the NBA faced at least $200-300MM in revenue losses due to the impact the Morey tweet and the subsequent controversy had on its relationship with Chinese partners. With the league also facing significant losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, improving relations with China has been a priority for commissioner Adam Silver for much of 2020, Windhorst writes.
The NBA has behaved (at least from China’s standpoint), so they get back into the market. No decision of the CCP is ever permanent.
LeBron has pull with the CCP
I wonder if the players are going to promote equality and civil rights during that game? Is Lebron going to prove he isn’t a hypocrite by wearing a Uighur Lives Matter shirt? They had no problem protesting about unfair treatment here.
Surprised more people are not speaking up about this. Moneys more important. No player should play in their league and get payed if this socially correct country doesnt want to be hypocritical.
You certainly do have a valid point
This is silly. Protesting your own problems is not the same as protesting someone else’s.
The NBA players are huge hypocrites. How many of them wear Nike apparel. We all know about their sweat shops yet the players proudly wear their stuff and say absolutely nothing. They are a joke.
Whoop-dee-doo!
I remember how almost everyone was convinced the Rockets were going to fire Daryl Morey despite the fact that he is one of the top GM’s in the NBA right now and dozens of teams would get rid of their own GM if he were to become available.
The NBA is also taking all social messaging off the court and jerseys next year because their ratings are in the tank this year. I guess they don’t really believe in their “cause”when it comes to losing money. They are a bunch of hypocrites and frauds.
Who cares about social causes! NBA is entertainment & business! If you don’t like it, please don’t watch! Social justice & so on that is the job of the government to carry out, most certainly must never be the NBA or any pro league!
Agree!
When you get up and go to work and cost your parent company in excess of $200m in lost revenue and then still have your job…only in America I guess.
True but the NBA was fully supportive of the players. They deserve what they get. The NBA and the players.
Why should China complain about Americans, when American middlemen are busy wedging Chinese products into markets here.