Slandering the President of the United States or bullying a state over transgender madness is acceptable, even praiseworthy in the most woke pro league. Running the risk of offending brutal Chinese dictators is not.
The league quickly came down on the Rockets GM when he made a fairly innocuous statement supporting the Hong Kong protestors. The league then issued a groveling apology to the Chinese, emphasizing how they do not want to meddle in other people's business. LOL tell that to the state of NC.
For once, the sports media stood up to their favorite league. A sampling of commentary.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ina-nba-tencent-apology-twitter-a9146211.html "Groveling apology"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/sports/basketball/nba-china-hong-kong.html
By Daniel Victor
But this weekend, a Houston Rockets executive unwittingly exposed an issue that may have been too much for the National Basketball Association: support for protesters in Hong Kong, which infuriated China.
“Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” read an image posted on Twitter by Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Rockets. It was quickly deleted.
But the damage was done, and the N.B.A. quickly moved to smooth things over in a lucrative market that generates millions of dollars in revenue. The league said it was “regrettable” that many Chinese fans were offended by the comment.
On Tuesday, Silver tried again to limit the impact, saying that the league’s initial statement had left people “angered, confused or unclear on who we are or what the N.B.A. stands for.”
“It is inevitable that people around the world — including from America and China — will have different viewpoints over different issues,” he said in a new statement. “It is not the role of the N.B.A. to adjudicate those differences.”
The stakes are particularly high for the N.B.A. in China.
Tencent Holdings, a Chinese tech conglomerate, reported that 490 million people watched N.B.A. programming on its platforms last year, including 21 million fans who watched Game 6 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals. By comparison, Nielsen measured 18.3 million viewers for the game on the American network ABC.
The league recently announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Tencent to stream its games in China for a reported $1.5 billion.
Echoing China’s worldview, especially as it relates to its sovereignty over disputed territories, is considered a cost of doing business there, for both entertainers and companies.
Gap was forced to apologize in 2017 after selling a shirt that featured a map of China that did not include Taiwan, a self-governing island off its southern coast. The Marriott International hotel chain apologized in January 2018 for listing Tibet, a region of western China, and Taiwan as countries in a customer survey.
In February 2018, the German automaker Daimler apologized for using a quotation from the Dalai Lama, who is widely viewed as a Tibetan separatist in China, in a social media post from its Mercedes-Benz brand.
In March 2018, China demanded that international airlines refer to Taiwan as part of China in their online booking systems, a request mocked by the White House as “Orwellian nonsense” but eventually obeyed by all major carriers.
Movie studios frequently find themselves at odds with state censors in a country where notions of free expression do not apply but billions of dollars ride on international success.
Crystal Yifei Liu, its Chinese-American star, prompted dueling backlash in the United States and China by supporting a crackdown on protesters by Hong Kong police.
Disney, which had no comment, has inched forward in its positioning in China for decades, leading to the opening of Shanghai Disneyland in 2016 and spectacular results for films like the recent “Avengers: Endgame,” which took in $858 million in the United States and $614 million in China earlier this year. Last year, Chinese moviegoers bought an estimated $8.87 billion in movie tickets, up 9 percent from a year earlier, according to box office analysts.
For its part, the N.B.A. has weathered outrage in China before. Last year, J.J. Redick, then of the Philadelphia 76ers, recorded a video for the Chinese New Year in which he appeared to use a racial slur for Chinese people, which he later said was an unintentional verbal slip. He apologized, but was roundly booed when he touched the ball during preseason games in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Claire Fu, Sopan Deb, Julie Creswell and Brooks Barnes contributed reporting.
LOL, even Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...l-morey-nba-hong-kong-houston-rockets-895706/
The NBA Chooses China’s Money Over Hong Kong’s Human Rights
Daryl Morey is now being forced to apologize because he… supports Democracy?
The league quickly came down on the Rockets GM when he made a fairly innocuous statement supporting the Hong Kong protestors. The league then issued a groveling apology to the Chinese, emphasizing how they do not want to meddle in other people's business. LOL tell that to the state of NC.
For once, the sports media stood up to their favorite league. A sampling of commentary.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ina-nba-tencent-apology-twitter-a9146211.html "Groveling apology"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/sports/basketball/nba-china-hong-kong.html
By Daniel Victor
- Published Oct. 7, 2019Updated Oct. 9, 2019, 1:34 a.m. ET
- HONG KONG — The N.B.A. superstar LeBron James has routinely insulted President Trump. Two of the league’s most successful coaches, Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, have repeatedly slammed American lawmakers for inaction on gun legislation. And other basketball stars regularly speak out on social and political issues — police shootings, elections and racism — without fear of retribution from the league.
But this weekend, a Houston Rockets executive unwittingly exposed an issue that may have been too much for the National Basketball Association: support for protesters in Hong Kong, which infuriated China.
“Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong,” read an image posted on Twitter by Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Rockets. It was quickly deleted.
But the damage was done, and the N.B.A. quickly moved to smooth things over in a lucrative market that generates millions of dollars in revenue. The league said it was “regrettable” that many Chinese fans were offended by the comment.
On Tuesday, Silver tried again to limit the impact, saying that the league’s initial statement had left people “angered, confused or unclear on who we are or what the N.B.A. stands for.”
“It is inevitable that people around the world — including from America and China — will have different viewpoints over different issues,” he said in a new statement. “It is not the role of the N.B.A. to adjudicate those differences.”
The stakes are particularly high for the N.B.A. in China.
Tencent Holdings, a Chinese tech conglomerate, reported that 490 million people watched N.B.A. programming on its platforms last year, including 21 million fans who watched Game 6 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals. By comparison, Nielsen measured 18.3 million viewers for the game on the American network ABC.
The league recently announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Tencent to stream its games in China for a reported $1.5 billion.
Echoing China’s worldview, especially as it relates to its sovereignty over disputed territories, is considered a cost of doing business there, for both entertainers and companies.
Gap was forced to apologize in 2017 after selling a shirt that featured a map of China that did not include Taiwan, a self-governing island off its southern coast. The Marriott International hotel chain apologized in January 2018 for listing Tibet, a region of western China, and Taiwan as countries in a customer survey.
In February 2018, the German automaker Daimler apologized for using a quotation from the Dalai Lama, who is widely viewed as a Tibetan separatist in China, in a social media post from its Mercedes-Benz brand.
In March 2018, China demanded that international airlines refer to Taiwan as part of China in their online booking systems, a request mocked by the White House as “Orwellian nonsense” but eventually obeyed by all major carriers.
Movie studios frequently find themselves at odds with state censors in a country where notions of free expression do not apply but billions of dollars ride on international success.
Crystal Yifei Liu, its Chinese-American star, prompted dueling backlash in the United States and China by supporting a crackdown on protesters by Hong Kong police.
Disney, which had no comment, has inched forward in its positioning in China for decades, leading to the opening of Shanghai Disneyland in 2016 and spectacular results for films like the recent “Avengers: Endgame,” which took in $858 million in the United States and $614 million in China earlier this year. Last year, Chinese moviegoers bought an estimated $8.87 billion in movie tickets, up 9 percent from a year earlier, according to box office analysts.
For its part, the N.B.A. has weathered outrage in China before. Last year, J.J. Redick, then of the Philadelphia 76ers, recorded a video for the Chinese New Year in which he appeared to use a racial slur for Chinese people, which he later said was an unintentional verbal slip. He apologized, but was roundly booed when he touched the ball during preseason games in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Claire Fu, Sopan Deb, Julie Creswell and Brooks Barnes contributed reporting.
LOL, even Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...l-morey-nba-hong-kong-houston-rockets-895706/
The NBA Chooses China’s Money Over Hong Kong’s Human Rights
Daryl Morey is now being forced to apologize because he… supports Democracy?
The Columbia Bugle @ColumbiaBugle
