NBA Sinks Its Teeth into China
Posted by jenny3 on April 27th, 2008
After Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian went to the NBA one after the other, after Houston has been receiving a lot of benefits from Yao’s market, after Milwaukee is starting to gain from what Yi can offer, the NBA becomes to focus on Chinese market and tries to get a piece of big pie from China’s seemly infinite market.
Last year, the NBA successfully hosted the NBA China Games in China. But this was not the only purpose. The NBA faoundation also wants to join forces with the CBA or even possibly run its own Chinese basketball league. This week, there were five new partners had bought up 11% stake of the newly formed NBA China. If such a league is really formed in China, most advertisers must rush to cash in on China’s fervent fans.
I remember last November, when Yao and Yi first derby in NBA, there were more than 200 million audiences watched that game, which was really shocked the Americans. In the past six years, Yao have brought Huston Rocket enormous benefits, and this year the Milwaukee Bucks also wants Yi to bring them the benefits. On the other hand, Chinese companies like Peak have already thrown advertising dollars to the NBA market. China is such a big commercial market. That’s why more and more companies want to own the Chinese market, and even the popular NBA wants to get a part of pie from Chinese market.