NEW YORK -- NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday the league expects to lose "several hundred million dollars" due to a row with China over a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supporting Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.
The NBA's Chinese sponsors cut ties in a fierce mainland backlash following Morey's tweet in October, just before two NBA teams played pre-season exhibition matches in China.
State broadcaster CCTV also stopped airing NBA games for the country's millions of ardent basketball fans and has not resumed.
"The magnitude of the loss will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars," Silver told a press conference on the sidelines of the All-Star Weekend in Chicago.
"Probably less than $400 million, maybe even less than that," he said.
However, "it's substantial", he added.
"I don't want to run from that ... But I don't have any sense that there's any permanent damage to our business there."
The commissioner said he expected CCTV to resume broadcasts of NBA games but did not give a timeframe.
Agence France-Presse
NEW YORK -- China demanded that a Houston Rockets executive be sacked for supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday, adding that the league's row with Beijing had "substantial" financial consequences.
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey ignited a firestorm earlier this month with a tweeted image captioned "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong."
It came right before the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets arrived in China for what proved to be a tense two-game exhibition tour, with broadcasters there refusing to air the games, public protests against Morey's comments and local sponsors cutting ties with the NBA.
Hong Kong has been rocked by months of demonstrations by citizens who accuse Beijing of chipping away at its freedoms, but China has portrayed the protesters as violent separatists and bristled at any foreign interference in the matter.
The backlash in China against Morey's comments has cast a cloud over the NBA's lucrative broadcasting, merchandising and sponsorship interests in the country, where it has legions of fans.
"We were being asked to fire him by the Chinese government, by the parties we dealt with, government and business," Silver said during a panel discussion in New York.
"We said there's no chance that's happening. There's no chance we'll even discipline him."
But the NBA chief said the dispute over Morey's actions had taken a big toll on the league's bottom line.
"I don't know where we go from here," Silver said. "The financial consequences have been and may continue to be fairly dramatic.
"The losses have already been substantial," he added. "Our games are not back on the air in China as we speak, and we'll see what happens next."
Silver hit back at criticism of the NBA's early statements on the crisis, which many saw as overly deferential to Beijing.
"We were saying we regretted upsetting our fans (but) also at the same time supporting Daryl Morey's right to express himself, right to tweet... Maybe I was trying too hard to be a diplomat.
"There was no regret directed to the government (but instead) to our fans, hundreds of millions of them in China."
'AMERICAN VALUES'
Beijing's response to Morey's comments sparked US accusations that Beijing was using access to its vast market as leverage to dictate speech in other countries.
Basketball superstar LeBron James, who traveled to China with the Lakers for the exhibition games, this week said Morey "wasn't educated" on the situation and suggested the Rockets executive should have kept his mouth shut.
But Silver said Thursday that the league had a responsibility to defend freedom of speech.
"The values of the NBA -- the American values, we are an American business -- travel with us wherever we go," he said. "And one of those values is free expression."
Since the row began, the NBA has also found itself under pressure from US politicians and media outlets who have urged the league not to buckle under Chinese criticism or even to withdraw from the Chinese market completely.
"I understand there's a point of view from some that we shouldn't be in business at all in China and I'd say from an intellectual standpoint that's fair," Silver said.
"But if people believe we shouldn't be engaged in commerce in China... I look to the American government."
"Many multi-national corporations trade extensively with China and if that's ultimately how our government feels we should be dealing with China, again, we're a US company."
But Silver feared that the NBA's 15-year effort to build cultural ties with China and expand the game's reach there had been undermined by the Morey dispute.
"I felt we had made enormous progress in terms of building cultural exchanges with the Chinese people," Silver said.
"I have regret that much of that was lost."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
BEIJING - Chinese smartphone maker Vivo said on Tuesday it will suspend all cooperation with the National Basketball Association (NBA), joining a series of Chinese firms cutting ties with the league following a tweet by a Houston Rockets executive supporting Hong Kong's protesters.
Vivo, in a statement published on social media platform Weibo, said it is strongly dissatisfied with Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey's comments on Hong Kong and the NBA's stance on the matter.
Vivo was a key sponsor for the upcoming exhibition games to be played in Shanghai and Shenzhen later this week by the Los Angeles Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets.
(Reporting by Se Young Lee and Roxanne Liu)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Russell Westbrook warms up a few moments before his new team, the Houston Rockets, face the Toronto Raptors in a preseason game in Saitama, Japan on Tuesday. Several Houston Rockets sponsors and partners in China said they would stop broadcasting its games after the team’s general manager Daryl Morey posted a since-deleted tweet supporting Hong Kong protesters. China Central Television, the state broadcaster, has gone a step further and said it would stop broadcasting all NBA preseason games after NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended Morey’s freedom of expression.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
TOKYO -- NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended the league's response to the Houston Rockets general manager's tweet backing Hong Kong democracy protests, telling Japan's Kyodo News that his organization supports freedom of expression without necessarily endorsing a point of view.
Daryl Morey apologized on Monday for any hurt caused by the tweet that he quickly deleted over the weekend, but his support for the protests in the Chinese-ruled city angered Beijing, Chinese fans and the team's partners in a key NBA market.
The National Basketball Association issued a statement saying it regretted Morey's remarks, rankling U.S. lawmakers, who accused the league of buckling under Chinese pressure for the sake of business.
It also disappointed some who see the NBA as the most progressive U.S. sports league. Silver has urged players to speak out on issues of concern, including police brutality and gun violence.
But Silver told Kyodo News in an interview the league's stance was firm that members of the NBA community were free to express themselves and that the league backed their right to do so.
"There are the values that have been part of this league from its earliest days, and that includes free expression," Silver, in Japan for a preseason game on Tuesday between the Rockets and the Toronto Raptors, told Kyodo.
"I think as a values-based organization that I want to make it clear ... that Daryl Morey is supported in terms of his ability to exercise his freedom of expression," he told the news agency. "I accept that it is also Chinese governments' and Chinese businesses' right to react to those words and, at least from my long-time experience in the NBA, it will take some time to heal some of these issues."
Silver said the league also supported Brooklyn Nets owner and Alibaba Group co-founder Joseph Tsai, who issued a lengthy statement criticizing Morey's tweet.
A preseason game between the Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers is set for Thursday in Shanghai. However, organizers abruptly cancelled a Tuesday media event in the city without giving an explanation.
Several Chinese celebrities also announced on China's Twitter-like Weibo service that they would not attend an NBA-organized "fans' night" Wednesday evening.
Actor and singer Evan Li said in a statement posted on his Weibo account that he would boycott the event, saying "the motherland always stands above everything."
The NBA is believed to earn billions of yuan a year from its Chinese merchandise sales, and fans said the league needed to take action.
"If the NBA doesn't do anything about this matter, about Morey supporting Hong Kong independence, then should we think about how does the NBA view the Chinese market and Chinese fans?" said Zhang Jinru, a Beijing high school student.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
