Huang Jianhua, The NBA's First Chinese Owner

Nan Yong's corruption was exposed, and the focus of public opinion directly pointed to the pioneer of China's sports industrialization - the Chinese Football Association. Chinese football, from league A to the Chinese Super League, from the management level to the clubs, has always been A pseudo-market operation, which is the root of its corruption and shady.

Yao Ming, in charge of the Shanghai Men's Basketball Team, borrowed the NBA model for management. He said, "No matter how good brothers are in the NBA, even brothers or even fathers and sons, they must sign contracts in commercial clubs, and everything must be done by the rules and regulations." The NBA has provided an excellent blueprint for the real industrialization of Chinese sports.

Progress comes from learning, and learning comes from understanding. Huang Jianhua takes us into the NBA, into the sports industrialization.

Anyone who loves the game of basketball knows the NBA -- the National Basketball Association, the most successful professional basketball league in the world. In late May 2009, Huang Jianhua, a "mysterious" Chinese-American businessman, became the first Chinese owner of an NBA team after completing the purchase of a 15% stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers and their home Quicken Loans Center. In the golden autumn of October, Huang Jianhua targeted the Chinese Professional Basketball League (CBA), in one fell swoop to purchase the Jilin team, into the mainland sports market. In just a few months, "Huang Jianhua" has become the talk of Chinese football fans.

A young badminton player makes his way to America

A few months ago, not many people knew about "Huang Jianhua" until he bought the team of "Emperor" (famous NBA star LeBron James). With the continuous exposure of the media, Huang Jianhua's "prominent background" is revealed in front of people: the first Chinese to enter the New York Stock Exchange, the famous partner of the New York Yankees, the partner of the Houston Rockets, the promoter of the New York Yankees in Greater China, the investor of the Chinese professional baseball league and youth baseball league...... Today, Huang Jianhua is a successful businessman. Three decades ago, he was a badminton player at the Guangzhou Sports School.

Huang Jianhua was born in Guangzhou on September 12, 1964. Both of his grandparents were badminton players, and in the 1960s and 1970s, the Chinese and Indonesian national feather ball players were in the family. Under the influence of his family, Huang Jianhua started professional badminton training at the age of 9. He played badminton from the junior Sports school in Guangdong Province to the junior team. His best result in Guangzhou was sixth place. Later, Huang took a different path, and his teammates went on to play for the national team.

In 1980, at the age of 16, Huang and his teammates faced a crossroads in their lives: sports and studies. He resolutely chose the latter. Huang Jianhua is more "partial" to the liberal arts, at that time the college entrance examination just tests geography, political economy, history, and Chinese, not math, so his college entrance examination results are very good, so go to the key universities in China have no problem. But Huang didn't want to go far from home, so he chose Sun Yat-sen University, one of Guangzhou's most prestigious universities.

When it came to choosing a major, his mother, an English professor, suggested he study English, but Huang had his ideas. Huang Jianhua, who has been exposed to English since childhood and has a good background, has little interest in English, so he decides to learn Japanese, which he is not familiar with. At that time, there was a big age gap in the class. Huang Jianhua was the youngest in the class, but he got the best grades.

After graduating from university, Huang stayed on as a teacher. However, this "easy" job did not appeal to him much, so he decided to quit his job and study in the United States.

'Yellow Face' on Wall Street

In the autumn of 1984, Huang went to Columbia University in New York. From the time he started at Columbia, Huang found that his classmates would talk about baseball and football games. Thinking that talking to his classmates about football was a good way to learn the language and socialize, Huang started going to football games on his initiative. The dream of owning a football team was born in Huang Jianhua's heart.

Besides football, Huang also follows baseball. Baseball has always been a popular topic of conversation among the middle and upper classes in the United States, and many social activities between them are often held in the stands of baseball games. "With more than 100 baseball games a season, you can spend a lot of time talking to Americans. Sometimes when you go to baseball, it's not all about the game -- it's an opportunity to connect, to network, to talk, and that's the social and cultural foundation of America." "Using it as a platform to socialize is something that rugby can't do," Mr. Huang said. Since then, Huang Jianhua has begun to explore unlimited business opportunities in the sports industry.

Huang graduated from Columbia University in 1988. The New York Stock Exchange needed a master's degree student from Asia who spoke English, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese, and Mr. Huang, perfectly qualified, decided to take a chance.

On the day of the interview, Huang met numerous Asian faces, all of whom were hopeful. Despite his lack of technical terms and financial expertise, Huang can quickly interweave Mandarin, Japanese, Cantonese, and English with clear thinking in less than a minute. Huang Jianhua's excellent psychological quality left a deep impression on the presiding judge. In the end, Huang passed five rounds of examination and was admitted to the New York Stock Exchange. For the first time, there were "yellow faces" with black eyes and black hair on the New York Stock Exchange.

Playing with the Jews

No one in the financial market can always be smooth sailing. "Of course, every investor makes mistakes, and I am no exception." Especially with shrewd Jews, Huang Jianhua also learned the hard way.

Once, he had a deal with a big New York real estate agent, also a Jew. "It was a very smooth conversation and it seemed very harmonious. But as we were about to finalize the deal, the Jew turned his back at the last minute because he was unhappy with the distribution of benefits."

This matter, let Huang Jianhua still remember. "Chinese people value harmony. Friends come first, then business. Jews, on the other hand, see self-interest as the most important thing. This may have something to do with its history."

But at the same time, Jews were indeed his teachers in the business. Huang said he admires two people most, one is Alexander, and the other is the NBA executive David Stern. Both of these men are Jews.

In the pursuit of wealth, Huang learned from Jews while trying to stand on an equal footing with these elites. "On the New York Stock Exchange, Americans, especially Jews, are the mainstream, and you can't get on par with them. You're always stuck, always a worker." Unwilling to accept that there was too little room for development, Huang used the contacts he had accumulated at work to start doing wealth management for some of the super-rich.

As one of the few Asians familiar with Wall Street capital at the time, Huang made money relatively quickly, starting with wealthy Japanese clients and gradually gaining the attention of the non-Asian super-rich, thus finishing his initial accumulation of wealth. Then he goes back to working with someone at the top of the American wealth circle. "You're no longer working for him. Instead, you're a minority shareholder and he's a major shareholder, and that's different. Slowly, in the end, it was 50/50." Huang said some rules of the capital market must be clearly understood, step by step, "no one can eat a big fat."

Huang Jianhua's other success secret is always adhering to the win-all, at least the win-win principle. "This is our Chinese virtue. America's wealthy masters are mostly Jews, who like to fight for pennies and believe that the winner is king. And I like win-win, although it is difficult, in the end, can win the respect of the counterparty, turn them into friends, and then cooperate." He said.

Meet the NBA and invest in the sports industry

In 1995, hoping to make a new career, he temporarily quit the financial industry. At this time, a chance to let him have a strong interest in NBA.

Huang Jianhua bought a mansion in the balmy Orlando Lakeside affluent area and lived next to his villa with a large black woman. Huang Jianhua, who likes to communicate by nature, became friends with the black woman one after another. They talked together and often visited each other. The old woman always brought Huang Jianhua delicacies such as dim sum that she made herself. Huang Jianhua will also talk to the woman about some interesting stories of his experience. During that time, Huang learned that the woman was the mother of a famous NBA star and lived in a house where her son cared for her for the elderly.

Compared with professional baseball and football, Huang was not familiar with the NBA until one day, when his mother's son came to visit his mother. Huang was surprised that his mother's star son was Shaquille O 'Neal, who was still on the Magic team at that time. Although he was not familiar with the NBA, Huang was aware of the relentless coverage of the talented newcomer in Orlando.

In 1994-95, O 'Neal led the Magic to the Finals. O 'Neal came to her mother to deliver her Grand Final VIP tickets. The woman gave Huang several tickets to watch the game and cheer for her son. That was Huang's first taste of the frenzy of the NBA.

The experience of watching the game laid a subtle foreshadowing for Huang Jianhua's future life.

Before Huang bought the Cavaliers, he was best known to the public as "Rockets owner Alexander's partner." The two had known each other in the capital markets of New York and had a great deal of business cooperation and intercourse. Because of his Chinese identity and familiarity with China, Alexander, who had never been to China, also gave Huang a lot of business in the Chinese market. In Huang and Alexander's collaboration, the rocket is only one of them. The two also work together on philanthropy: Mr. Huang runs the Alexander Unity Foundation, which has just donated two Hope elementary schools in China. In addition, Huang and Alexander are in the wine business together, and the two are in the process of acquiring Latour, the world's best wine brand.

Huang Jianhua, who is already the "partner of the Yankees", is not satisfied with the "partner of Alexander". He hopes to become the owner of an NBA team, which will have a greater say and carry out deeper exploration and cooperation in the Chinese market.

To create a charity sports league

After becoming the first Chinese owner of an NBA team by acquiring a 15 percent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers and its home Quicken Loans Centre, Huang has repeatedly said his priority remains the domestic basketball market. The speculation has turned out to be true -- Huang signed a framework agreement with the Jilin Siberian Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) with the ultimate goal of joining the team.

Huang Jianhua and CBA teams have been in contact for quite a long time. Xin Lancheng, director of the China Basketball Management Center, initially recommended four teams to Huang: Jilin, Yunnan, Shaanxi, and Shanghai. In early October 2009, Huang Jianhua discussed the "three principles" of cooperation in detail when inspecting the project in Yunnan: corporate culture, the personality of the company's boss or first shareholder, and the difference in products. Such "three principles" are what Zhang Aijun, the current boss of Jilin Siberian Tiger, values most and ultimately led him to decide to work with Huang.

Because of his extensive contacts on Wall Street and his successful experience in the capital operation market, Huang Jianhua is very comfortable in the investment field. He can easily do two projects when he is young. However, he chose not to choose this style of life, but actively run his charity work. "My goal is to be a philanthropist so that all 15,000 primary schools in China can have their own sports facilities for free."

Together with his investment partner, Joseph Cheng, the young owner of the New World Group, Huang set up the QSL Youth Sports Development Fund, hoping to use his influence in the sports world to promote the development of sports, charity activities, and youth sports in China. "At the end of the day, sport is the vehicle and charity is the end." "It is our original idea to turn our investment in sports into a vehicle for charity," Huang said. "My main personal income is still in the capital market and the stock market. The nature of our philanthropy model is that it's open, whether it's individuals or businesses, and we don't want to highlight the name of the individual, we want to highlight the name of the business."

It can be said that the sports industry is just the tip of the iceberg for Huang Jianhua's investment projects. He also has a "broad" plan: "At present, the biggest positioning of my life is to do finance and charity. I want to be a successful financial investor and philanthropist... My biggest wish is to start a sports league for charity."