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NBA to play in Shenzhen, Shanghai
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The NBA has announced two games to be played this fall in China in the US pro basketball league’s latest effort to mine a massive market with an insatiable taste for hoops.
The Charlotte Hornets will go up against the Los Angeles Clippers in Shenzhen and Shanghai in October exhibition games to kick off the 2014-15 season for Chinese National Basketball Association fans.
The NBA is expected to announce additional international games in the weeks ahead, part of the US league’s quest to make basketball the world’s leading sport. The association has invested especially heavily in China, where the game is played by an estimated 300 million people.
“We’ve seen incredible growth in the development of the audience,” NBA China chief executive David Shoemaker said.
Shoemaker said Shenzhen was an obvious candidate for an NBA game and that the Shenzhen Universiade Center, where the game will be played, is a “world class” arena.
The Clippers-Hornets contests will be especially starry if attended by Hornets owner Michael Jordan and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, the former chief executive of Microsoft.
Chinese fans know the US league’s stars well, said NBA Global Ambassador Dikembe Mutombo, a veteran of 18 seasons on NBA courts.
“I have been to the largest cities and the smallest villages in China, and the one constant is their love and knowledge of basketball and the NBA. Walking down the street I am humbled that the fans know and recognize me, even though I have retired from the game.”
Shoemaker said there are no plans to launch an NBA league in China or greater Asia.
But the league is trying to build support within its ranks to play weekend games as early as 9 or 10 am on the east coast of the United States to draw a prime-time viewing audience in China. Such a shift will not be ready in time for the 2015-6 season.
The proposed change is a “work in progress” and would only be enacted “with the full buy-in of the teams and the owners and the players themselves,” Shoemaker said.
NBA officials do not disclose financial details on the China business, but say China is the league’s biggest market after the US.
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