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Teahe national basketball Organization (nba) returning to China Six years after he was deported from the country following controversy over a social media post.
Brooklyn Nets and phoenix sun have come into the Chinese special administrative region of MacauWhere they will play two sold-out pre-season games on Friday and Sunday – part of a five-year contract with Sands China, the Macau unit of Las Vegas Sands.
Today’s match will mark the NBA’s first game played in a Chinese territory and the world’s largest gambling hub since 2019 as millions of fans await the return of one of the most beloved sports leagues in the mainland.
China has one of the largest fan bases in the world – over 300 million basketball players to be exact. Demand was immediate as tickets costing up to £46 sold out within minutes, underlining the enduring appetite for a basketball league in the region.
The Macau Games aim to strengthen its presence in China, even as US-China trade tensions cast a long shadow over the league’s ambitions.
19 year old student Kevin Chen explains Independent On Weibo: “I’m so excited for the NBA to come back. This will be my first time to see them play live. I thought I’d never get this opportunity.”
Chen says he grew up playing basketball just like his friends in Macau, but never had the opportunity to watch the league live.
The popularity of the NBA in China has grown steadily since its debut in 1979, accelerated by the rise of eight-time All-Star Yao Ming. The NBA last hosted a preseason game in Macau in 2007, when the Cleveland Cavaliers took on the Orlando Magic. And between 2004 and 2019, 17 NBA teams competed in China as part of the NBA China Games.
The Brooklyn Nets took a 17-hour flight to China with their new hire Zeng Fanbo on Monday.
The 22-year-old Chinese forward from Harbin returns as a local favorite and Exhibit 10 signee competing for a spot on the roster. “I can play a game on China’s part,” Zeng said. daily news“As a Chinese player here, I have to keep working hard and overcome the stereotypes for all Asians.”
Nets’ Michael Porter Jr. says he’s excited to bring the NBA to China. “I know there are a lot of fans, so it’ll be fun”.
“It will be fun to have the Phoenix Suns face off against another NBA team for the first time so we can really see where we are.”
Zeng tells Independent Basketball has been an integral part of his life, and it is unfortunate that politics has made its way into the game. “I’m waiting for official channels to resume broadcasting games. I want to enjoy watching games with my friends as we do with football,” says the Shenzhen resident. He added, “I’ve missed the NBA.”
“It is very important for us to be able to bring the live game experience, including live games, to more NBA fans around the world,” says NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum. “Our mission is to inspire and connect people everywhere through the game of basketball,” he said.
The world’s second-largest economy severed ties with the league in 2019 after NBA executives stood behind the then-general manager of the Houston Rockets. Daryl MoreyDue to which the league suffered a loss of millions of dollars.
Morey, now of the Philadelphia 76ers, expressed his support for the pro-democracy protests that took Hong Kong by storm in 2019, in a now-deleted tweet.
He posted an image with the slogan “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong” at the height of protests in the Chinese financial center. Following anti-government protests, Hong Kong has undergone a sharp political transition, with Beijing imposing a sweeping national security law that has curtailed civil liberties and redefined the city’s relations with the mainland.
There was a strong reaction from China and Beijing pulled the games from its broadcast channels. At the time, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that Chinese officials wanted to fire Morey, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry denied this claim. Months after the incident, Morey told ESPN: “I’m very comfortable with what I did”.
Even now, the Games come at a turbulent time.
There is trade friction between the US and China, with both sides threatening to impose excessive tariffs on each other’s exports. And the NBA has long heard criticism from lawmakers about not taking a stronger public stance about China’s human rights record,
The Associated Press quoted NBA Commissioner Adam Silver as saying, “So much of the sports industry is based on relationships and we believe sports plays a unique role in building community – not just in the United States but around the world, and especially at a time of increasing division.”
“Whether that divide is domestically or globally, there is almost nothing I can think of that brings communities together like sports, and especially a sport like basketball that is played globally, understood globally.”
It took several years for the league to repair strained relations. Chinese broadcasts of NBA games gradually resumed, and last year the league signed a multimillion-dollar deal to bring preseason games back to Macau. Last month, Nike sent basketball Legendary LeBron James on China tour,
Marc Dreyer, author of a book on China’s sports industry, told news agency AFP that the incident was a “perfect storm”, made even worse by the way the league issued separate statements in Chinese and English. “Fans in America thought they were too beholden to the Chinese government… (and) the Chinese side thought they weren’t respectful enough,” Dreyer says.
He says the NBA’s return was never in question, calling China a “key market”, with the league reportedly committed to holding two games a year as part of a five-year agreement. “Moving to Macau is a smart move because it is a soft landing,” he added.
The Nets and Suns will play at Macau’s Venetian Arena, which is owned by Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which is also a casino operator there. The games are being held in conjunction with a five-day free-to-enter music, fashion and technology extravaganza showcasing the NBA brand, with Shaquille O’Neal among the NBA celebrities expected to attend the event.
Sands President and Chief Operating Officer Patrick Dumont is a governor of the Dallas Mavericks, a role he assumed after his family acquired the team.
“Obviously, we know this is great for the Phoenix Suns and our community, our entire organization and the NBA,” Suns coach Jordan Ott says.
The casino operator announced its collaboration with the NBA in December 2024 and said it wanted to bring elite basketball directly to Chinese fans.
The Nets are owned by Joe Tsai, chairman of Chinese tech giant Alibaba. And this NBA season comes with high expectations for one Chinese rookie: Yang Hansen, a 7-foot-1 draft pick who is expected to play a role for the Portland Trail Blazers this season.
The NBA and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced a multi-year partnership on Thursday. Alibaba says it will work with the NBA to provide artificial intelligence and cloud computing services and enhance the fan experience on the NBA app in China. It added that Alibaba Cloud will be the official cloud computing and AI partner of NBA China.