The NBA's China Business Is Back. The Audience Has Changed.

In 1989, David Stern arrived at China Central Television carrying a videotape of NBA basketball. He had no scheduled meeting with a senior executive and no television contract to negotiate. According to accounts of the visit, he waited in the reception area until someone agreed to see him.

The proposal was straightforward. CCTV could broadcast NBA games without paying for the rights.

At the time, the NBA was still trying to establish an international audience. China had hundreds of millions of television viewers, but American professional basketball had little presence on Chinese screens. Stern was willing to give away the broadcasts because he wanted people to start watching.

For years, that decision looked extraordinarily profitable.

Yao Ming made the Rockets China's team

When the Houston Rockets selected Yao Ming with the first pick in the 2002 NBA draft, Chinese viewers suddenly had a reason to follow one American team closely.

Houston games became part of the morning routine. The time difference meant that fans in China often watched during breakfast, on their way to work, or between classes. Yao's performances were discussed in school corridors and offices long before short-form sports videos became common.

The Rockets benefited commercially. Jerseys, shoes, and other merchandise bearing Yao's name reached customers who had previously shown little interest in buying NBA products.

In 2004, the league brought preseason games to Shanghai and Beijing. Demand for tickets showed how far the NBA had moved beyond its original television experiment.

Yao retired in 2011, but Houston retained a Chinese following. Some fans continued watching the Rockets through rebuilding seasons and disappointing playoff runs. Younger viewers knew the team's history through old highlights, particularly Yao's matchups with Shaquille O'Neal.

The league had acquired something more valuable than occasional attention. It had an audience willing to arrange its daily schedule around games played on the other side of the Pacific.

That habit eventually became a substantial media business.

Tencent put a price on the audience

In 2015, Tencent agreed to pay a reported $500 million for five years of NBA digital broadcasting rights in China.

Four years later, the companies renewed their agreement. The reported price had climbed to $1.5 billion over another five years, equivalent to roughly $300 million annually.

The increase was striking when compared with domestic sports properties.

At the time, Chinese Basketball Association broadcasting rights were valued at approximately 400 million yuan per year, while Chinese Super League football rights were closer to 150 million yuan. Even allowing for differences in contract structure, the NBA commanded far higher digital media fees.

The English Premier League also attracted Chinese viewers, but its reported annual new-media rights revenue was considerably smaller than the NBA's Tencent deal.

Tencent was paying for a dependable audience. Live games brought viewers onto the platform, while subscriptions, advertising, and related commercial activity gave the company several ways to recover its investment.

NBA basketball also supplied an unusually large amount of programming. The regular season, playoffs, draft, trades, and offseason discussions kept fans engaged throughout the year.

By 2019, the league had spent three decades building that business. Then one social media post put much of it at risk.

The tweet that changed the relationship

On October 4, 2019, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey posted an image on Twitter supporting protests in Hong Kong.

The reaction in China was immediate.

The Chinese Basketball Association suspended cooperation with the Rockets. Chinese broadcasters and commercial partners began distancing themselves from the team, and the controversy soon spread to the league as a whole.

CCTV and Tencent suspended NBA coverage. Sponsors withdrew or paused their relationships. Chinese fans argued over the league's response, while American politicians and commentators criticized any suggestion that the NBA might restrict its employees' speech to protect commercial interests.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended Morey's right to express his views. He also acknowledged the anger the post had caused in China.

That position left the league exposed on both sides. A stronger apology risked criticism in the United States. A firmer defense of Morey threatened relationships in China that had taken decades to establish.

The NBA could absorb a public controversy. Losing television distribution in one of its largest international markets was a different financial problem.

And that was exactly what happened.

Twenty-eight months without CCTV

CCTV's suspension of regular NBA broadcasts lasted approximately 28 months before coverage resumed in 2022.

Tencent's relationship with the league followed a different course, with digital coverage returning earlier. The distinction matters because the NBA's Chinese television and streaming audiences were never distributed through a single channel.

Still, the interruption damaged the business.

NBA China's sponsorship roster, previously reported at around 25 partners, fell to approximately 13. Silver later acknowledged that the league had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in connection with the dispute.

The losses went beyond advertising contracts. For a sports league, regular exposure helps maintain the value of merchandise, sponsorships, and future broadcasting agreements. When games disappear from a major television channel, that exposure becomes harder to sustain.

Chinese viewers had alternatives. Domestic CBA games remained available, European basketball could fill programming slots, and younger audiences were increasingly spending time on short-video platforms.

Some dedicated NBA fans continued watching through Tencent and other available channels. Others gradually stopped following games as closely.

That second group presented a harder problem for the league. A television contract can be renewed through negotiation. Getting someone to resume a viewing habit after several years requires a reason to come back.

By the time CCTV resumed coverage, the Chinese sports media market had changed.

Macau offered a return, with limits

In October 2025, the NBA returned to China for preseason games in Macau, held at the Venetian Arena.

The event attracted a long list of celebrities and business figures, including Yao Ming, Shaquille O'Neal, David Beckham, Jackie Chan, Tony Leung, and Carina Lau. Jack Ma and Joe Tsai were also among the prominent attendees.

For the league, the games provided a chance to bring sponsors, broadcasters, and fans together in person after years of strained relations.

Adam Silver spoke confidently about basketball's popularity in China, pointing to the country's enormous fan base and the NBA's continuing relationship with CCTV.

The commercial setting, however, was smaller than before the 2019 dispute.

The sponsorship count stood at roughly 13, compared with about 25 before the controversy. That did not mean every former partner had permanently abandoned the NBA. It did show that the business had not fully recovered its previous roster of corporate backers.

Sponsors still invested in the event. Promotional booths, basketball activities, merchandise, and branded displays occupied space around the arena.

The crowd had plenty to watch before the players even took the floor.

A successful preseason event could demonstrate that interest remained. It could not establish how many Chinese fans would return to watching regular-season games months later.

That question mattered more to the broadcasters paying for the rights.

The money has returned faster than the old habits

The NBA still occupies an unusually strong position in China's sports media business.

Tencent's reported digital rights agreement runs through 2027 at an average annual value of about $300 million. CCTV has resumed its relationship with the league, although its NBA programming remains below the levels seen before 2019.

Estimates have placed NBA China's annual revenue from media rights, sponsorships, and licensing above 3 billion yuan. The league continues to command substantially higher broadcasting fees than the CBA and Chinese Super League.

These figures help explain why the NBA has remained committed to China despite the political and commercial difficulties.

Yet media rights revenue is only one measure of a sports league's position.

A platform may pay heavily for exclusive rights because live basketball still attracts subscribers and advertisers. That does not necessarily mean viewers watch with the same frequency, loyalty, or enthusiasm they showed ten years earlier.

The distinction becomes especially important as the NBA competes with other forms of entertainment for Chinese audiences' time.

A fan who once watched every Rockets game may now follow scores and highlights. Another may watch the playoffs but skip the regular season. Younger viewers can recognize Stephen Curry or LeBron James without having spent years following a particular team.

All three remain valuable to advertisers, but their viewing behavior produces different results for a broadcaster.

Before the 2019 dispute, outside estimates placed the value of the NBA's China business at around $5 billion. That figure reflected expectations of continued growth in a market where the league had built unusually strong recognition.

The Macau games showed that the NBA still had commercial partners, prominent supporters, and an audience prepared to attend major events.

Whether those relationships can support the same valuations is less clear.

For Tencent, the practical measure will be how often subscribers return during an ordinary week of the season, when there is no China Game, no celebrity-filled courtside section, and no special event to promote.

The game is available again.

The viewer can still leave it running while answering a message.