Last 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.
