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interface news reporter | shi yiying

interface news editor | ren xuesong

the nba is accelerating the full restart of its business in china.

the paris olympics has just ended. starting from mid-august 2024, nba stars have flocked to china to "show off". many nba stars signed by nike group's jordan brand, such as luka doncic and jayson tatum, will be on the field together. nba superstar stephen curry, signed by under armour, will also start his china tour in mid-september. nba stars signed by domestic sports brand anta have come to china one after another. the phoenix suns of the nba league also started their china tour for the first time in the name of the team, with the management team, legendary stars and active players gathered together.

the nba was once the most popular overseas professional sports event in the chinese market. in fact, because of the huge chinese market, its position among the four major sports leagues in north america has continued to rise from the bottom.

in early 2015, nba and tencent sports signed a five-year exclusive cooperation agreement, with annual copyright fees of up to $100 million. in the midst of the booming bubble of the domestic sports industry at the time, this agreement was both symbolic and a deal that was still considered worthwhile after the bubble burst. with this agreement, tencent sports became the only survivor of the sports channels of the four major portals, and smoothly transitioned to the era of competition among the "youku, iqiyi and tencent video" video websites and apps.

after joining hands with tencent, the nba ushered in its golden age in the chinese market. the league's sponsorship matrix developed rapidly. at its most prosperous time, chinese brands such as harbin beer and peak were official sponsors of the nba. through the league's commercialization level and regional layout, it is common for the nba to have multiple competitors in the same industry as official partners.

at that time, the nba held two nba china games every year before the season. after joining hands with tencent, the event also went to shenzhen for the first time. beijing, shanghai, and shenzhen, three super first-tier cities, became the cities where the nba china games were most frequently scheduled. in those years, the audience of the event was almost full. even tencent sports' free basketball event program "red and blue battle" created around the nba was able to enter the mercedes-benz stadium in shanghai, and nearly 10,000 tickets were sold out.

however, in october 2019, a tweet from daryl morey, then general manager of the houston rockets, directly led to a sharp downturn in the relationship between the nba and the chinese market. after the failure of mediation by multiple parties, the relationship reached a freezing point in the following two seasons.

according to reports from the us media, there were about 300 million nba fans in the chinese market at the time of the incident. adam silver, then president of the nba, admitted that the incident caused the nba to continue to lose money, including a loss of about $400 million in 2021 alone.

for nearly five years, the nba has been repairing its relationship with the chinese market. the summer star tours of china allow nba stars to have the closest contact with chinese fans. although not an act of the league, the nba and each team have given multi-faceted support.

at the end of august this year, the nba phoenix suns embarked on their first china tour in the name of the team. led by general manager james jones, the team's chief revenue officer, chief marketing officer and other senior executives, as well as active player nurkic and legendary stars ceballos and rex chapman, the team visited shanghai, macau, hong kong and other places and held a series of business and fan activities.

james jones told jiemian news: "i last came here 12 years ago and have also been to shanghai. i can feel that the city has changed a lot, but what remains unchanged is that the food is very delicious."

current player nurkic said, "nba is a global sporting event. the best thing about it is that it allows us players to go to places we have never been to, experience the culture there, and communicate with the fans."

it is understood that the phoenix suns will also visit macau and hong kong next. among them, macau has accelerated the promotion of the sports + tourism business model in recent years, so this city has many cooperation projects with the nba league.

at the same time, this summer's nba stars' china tour has another obvious feature, which is the increase in the proportion of street basketball events. this is also in line with the current trend of street basketball events becoming more popular in the domestic basketball market.

during the suns' visit to shanghai, team executives and legendary star and former nba dunk champion ceballos all appeared at the 2024 alien electrolyte water streetball overlord all-star weekend.

the person in charge of the nba china event said: "this year's competition is very popular. the influence and appeal of these players in the streetball circle still exceeded our expectations. at present, this project has become one of the most important projects of nba china."

according to the organizers, the 2024 streetball overlord season had more than 400,000 spectators, and the event was live-streamed on douyin for more than 200 hours, with a total live-streaming volume of more than 1 billion and nearly 100 million live-streaming viewers. the total number of views of the main topic "streetball overlord" and related topics on the douyin site has reached nearly 10 billion so far.

in terms of sponsors, alien electrolyte water is the official title sponsor of the event, luzhou laojiao baidiao and jack&jones are the official partners of the event, brands such as mengniu and xuanmai sugar-free chewing gum are the official co-sponsors of the event, and the official suppliers are meike flooring and jinling sports.

from the influx of nba stars visiting china to the large number of chinese brand sponsors of this key nba china project, it is not difficult to see that the nba's business in the chinese market is currently picking up.