The Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers have arrived in Shanghai to prepare for an exhibition game Wednesday night at the Qizhong Forest Sports City arena. The Magic will then head to Macao to take on the Chinese national team Thursday night at the new Venetian arena and then stage a rematch there against the Cavs Saturday night. While some players and coaches had trepidations about making an 8-day trip to China just a couple weeks before the start of the season– Cleveland coach Mike Brown was an outspoken opponent of the trip– most of the players seem thrilled to be representing the NBA game in China. One player in particular, Magic center Adonal Foyle was ecstatic to make the trip to China. In a league in which most players seem to always say and do the wrong thing, Foyle is an exception, a worldly and politically active player who founded the non-profit “Democracy Matters.” Foyle told Florida newspaper the Ledger:
Shanghai is the city of economic boom. Whereas the world is seeing an economic slowdown, China is the opposite. It’s a pretty amazing city and I’m looking forward to going back there…When you think of Communism, you think of the restriction that comes with Communism. Shanghai is the antithesis of that. Somehow they have managed to allow Shanghai complete reign to undergo economic development. So it’s quite different from a lot of the other Chinese cities…Shanghai could be New York; you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference except there’s probably 100 skyscrapers being built all at once. It’s a pretty modern city. I mean, you’ll see hotels, every American fast-food joint, and Gucci socks. It’s no different.
A bit more profound than what we’ve come to expect from NBA players like Larry Hughes who when asked if he looked forward to the trip said, “Not at all. It’s something you’ve got to do.” What many NBA players don’t get, as they rue 17-hour flights and a bad case of jet-lag, is that China is the NBA’s frontier for marketing. If someone sat Larry Hughes down and explained to him that there are 300 million NBA fans in China who would potentially buy his jersey if he wasn’t such a whiner, maybe he’d stop being such a whiner. According to a Canadian Press story Sunday, NBA merchandise is sold in over 50,000 outlets in China and does about $50 million USD in annual profit. Tickets to the Macau games sold out in hours (tickets for the Shanghai game are absurdly overpriced for local fans). What’s good for the NBA’s exposure in China is good for the NBA. Adonal Foyle gets it. LeBron James, who has spent time the last 4 summers in China, gets it. Commissioner David Stern gets it.
This week marks the beginning of the new NBA subsidiary, NBA China. On top of the unprecedented multi-city exhibition tour, the company’s new CEO Tim Chen, a former Microsoft executive, begins work today. The NBA is counting on Chen to solidify new television contracts that will broadcast games frequently and regularly on Chinese cable. NBA China also hopes to launch a digital web offering similar to the NBA Game Pass available in America. And ultimately, in the back of minds of NBA executives, would be an NBA-branded league in China independent of the existing Chinese Basketball Association.
Until then, Chinese hoops fans and expats alike will just have to wait for those rare moments, like on Wednesday, when two teams make a different kind of road trip and play where NBA basketball is appreciated most.
•Canadian Press: NBA Hopes to Continue Taking Big Leaps Forward
•The Ledger: Foyle: It’s Like Magic in Shanghai