Chinese Tech Giant Tencent Resumes NBA Broadcast Despite Hong Kong Row
Chinese tech giant Tencent quietly live-streamed two NBA preseason games, a week after a controversy..
Chinese tech giant Tencent quietly live-streamed two NBA preseason games, a week after a controversy involving a tweet about the Hong Kong protests prompted all official Chinese sponsors of the league to suspend ties.
Tencent, on the morning of Oct. 14, streamed two games: one between the Toronto Raptors and Chicago Bulls in Toronto, and another between Israels Maccabi Haifa and Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.
Just a week ago, the tech giant suspended broadcast of Houston Rockets games after the teams general executive, Daryl Morey, expressed support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement in a tweet that was swiftly deleted.
The tweet ignited an uproar in China, where the ongoing protests are seen as a direct challenge to the mainland regimes sovereignty. Houston Rockets and NBAs Chinese business partners cut ties as a result, while the teams sneakers and other merchandise were pulled from several Nike and NBA stores in major Chinese cities.
Tencent later announced it would halt the broadcast of NBA preseason games that took place in China last week. Chinas state broadcaster CCTV also pulled the broadcast of those games.
The internet giant has the exclusive rights to stream the NBA in China, and is the leagues largest digital partner outside the United States. The two had just signed a deal worth $1.5 billion in July, extending their partnership for another five years.
The current broadcast schedule on Tencent showed that all live-streaming of NBA games will resume on Oct. 23. Houston Rockets games werent on the schedule list.
About 490 million people watched last seasons NBA games on the Tencent platform, according to the NBA.
When asked about the resumption of NBA streaming on Tencent, a foreign ministry spokesperson said at a press conference on Oct. 14 that they “generally do not comment on the business behaviors of companies,” but stressed that “sports exchange has played a positive role in China–U.S. relations and friendship.”
Tencent was blasted on Chinas popular microblogging site Weibo for resuming streaming, with many nationalistic Chinese netizens decrying the move as an act of “betrayal.”
“Seems like the patriotism is short-lived,” a user wrote.
The move came amid efforts by the Chinese regime to reign in the crisis over concerns that its heated reaction against the NBA could harm its image abroad, The New York Times reported.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the NBA faced mounting condemnation over its initial disavowal of Moreys tweet. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver later defended Moreys right to express his views on Hong Kong, adding that it isnt up to the league to regulate what players, employees, and team owners say.
Ten bipartisan U.S. lawmakers wrote to Silver on Oct. 10 expressing concern over the NBA “equivocating” on free speech during the saga. They also urged the league to suspend its activities in China while the Chinese boycotts against the NBA and the Houston Rockets are still in place.
“Unless American businesses aggressively confront this intimidation campaign, the Chinese government will increasingly punish free speech outside Chinas borders,” the joint letter (Read More – Source