Is the NBA-China dispute a litmus test for free speech?
photo courtesy of unsplash,com
Trey Stewart, Sports Editor
The lights shined bright on the massive court in Shanghai, one of the largest cities in the world. All eyes were on the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets. That is, of course, if you were actually inside the arena.
Not a single Chinese television station was broadcasting the highly anticipated game.
The reason? Protests throughout China revolving around a tweet sent out by Houston Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey have been the talk of the basketball world for the past couple of weeks.
Morey posted at tweet on October 4th that read:
“Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”
Hong Kong citizens are currently protesting the Fugitive Offenders Bill, which is a proposed item of legislation that would allow the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to mainland China.
After realizing the weight his tweet held, it was promptly deleted by Morey. However, by that point, the damage had been done. The Chinese government was furious, and the broadcasts of the NBA-China games were taken off the air. Along with this, Chinese stations would no longer be broadcasting NBA games well into the regular season.
With the NBA realizing the amount of financial loss would likely follow such drastic actions by the Chinese government, many expected commissioner Adam Silver to attempt to bridge the gap by wavering from the American principle and constitutional right of free speech. However, he did quite the opposite, and stood up for Morey as the Chinese government was pressuring him to relieve Morey of his duties.
“We were never going to fire him,” Silver said to the media after the ordeal. “We were never even going to discipline him.”
Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the situation from the league’s perspective is simply the fact that Morey is the GM of the Rockets as opposed to any other team. The Rockets are far and away the most popular NBA team for Chinese fans, and it has been this way since Chinese superstar center Yao Ming was drafted by the team in 2002.
Jonathan Hannah, NBA fanatic, believes this may prove detrimental to the NBA, but more specifically, the Rockets themselves.
“As of right before the time the tweet was sent out, China was responsible for 10 percent of the NBA’s profit,” explains Hannah. “With Morey being the GM for the Rockets, who have consistently been a fan favorite in China, this could mean huge financial losses.”
For the moment, the league seems content in attempting to let the whole controversy blow over, but the Chinese government is still furious about how it is being handled. Whether or not this hurts the NBA in a noticeable way is yet to be seen, but the league has proven so far that they won’t cave to another country’s political demands.
