NBA To Play Two Pre-Season Games In China
Following on the All-Stars games played in Los Angeles
on Feb. 15, the NBA announced that it would play two pre-season
games in Beijing and Shanghai between the Houston Rockets
and Sacramento Kings in October.
The main draw for the games in China will be Yao Ming,
who plays center for the Houston Rockets. Yao Ming has
a huge following in China, regularly drawing in audiences
of 300 million per game. In the US, television viewership
of NBA games has held steady, and has not shown dramatic
growth.
In October, Yao Ming will begin his third year with the
Houston Rockets. Lately, he has begun to show maturity
as a marketing vehicle, opening the Chinese market for
his sponsors. For the NBA, he brings in a huge new audience
and revenue from TV broadcast rights in China. Recently,
he has signed as a spokesman for McDonalds
, which is aggressively expanding its China presence.
In addition, he has signed with Reebok, which will create
a new line of basketball shoes for China called the "High
Post". It would be reasonable to expect the launch
and promotion of the new line in China to coincide with
the NBA pre-season games.
For the NBA, this means that its main center of revenue
growth will be outside the US market. Some Chinese basketball
teams have already signalled their intent to start hiring
NBA basketball coaches from the US to bring the Chinese
game level up to international standards.
Reebok is in a tight competition with Nike for sports
lifestyle products and sponsorships globally.
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