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NBA Expansion – SPORTS AGENT BLOG
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NBA Expansion

Joakim Noah's roarLast week, the NBA had a big announcement to make and it had absolutely nothing to do with what was coming out of Joakim Noah’s mouth. The positive news concerned the formation of NBA China, which will be the wing of the National Basketball Association dealing exclusively with Chinese affairs. The venture will be partly financed by ESPN, Bank of China, Legend Holdings Limited, Li Ka Shing Foundation, and China Merchants Investments.

The Business Wire press release makes it seem like the Chinese Basketball Association is happy about the NBA’s expansion into China. Over 100 NBA employees currently work in 4 China-based offices. You can definitely expect both numbers to rise after the announcement of NBA China. I bet that David Stern and pals looked at these facts before forming the new venture:

NBA.com/China has become the most popular single sports site in China and NBA is consistently the most searched sports term on Baidu.com, the top search engine in China. More than 500 unique NBA products are available in China at Wal-Mart, Carrefour, adidas stores and many other retail locations. The NBA became the first American sports league to stage games in China in 2004 with the NBA China Games 2004 in Beijing and Shanghai. The league returned this season for NBA China Games 2007, three preseason games played in Shanghai and Macao.

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While building NBA China, David Stern will be able to enjoy the money pouring into the league via its new partnership with Kia Motors. As the Official Automotive Partner of the NBA, Kia will have its name on some important end of the year honors such as the MVP award, Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Man, and Most Improved Player. IMG acted as Kia’s agent in the negotiation of the deal.

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.