Are China and the NBA Friends Again?
It almost seems like last year’s furor over Daryl Morey’s tweet has disappeared. Almost.
Not going away.
Photographer: Anthony Wallace/AFP
Just over a year ago, China broke up with the NBA. The spark was a tweet by Daryl Morey, one of the league’s most prominent executives, in support of Hong Kong’s protest movement. Top-ranking Chinese officials demanded apologies and resignations. Social-media trolls harassed anybody who sided with the NBA. Games were pulled from state television. Joseph Tsai, the Taiwan-born owner of the Brooklyn Nets, wrote on Facebook that the “hurt that this incident has caused will take a long time to repair.”
In a commercial sense, at least, it didn’t take long at all. When China’s state-run television network aired Gamed Five of the NBA Finals this year, it was if nothing had happened. News and discussion about the NBA are again rife across Chinese social media and American stars are renewing their efforts to market to Chinese fans. Even as the league has encouraged players to speak out about social issues, no one has had much to say about Beijing.