NBA China is now recruiting aggressively across the board
NBA exhibition games featuring the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Orlando Magic, and Team China All Stars in Shanghai and Macau recently are the highlight of a year which has seen the league increase its sports marketing activities in Greater China by 400 per cent.
By the end of this NBA off-season, which ran from June to late last month, the league had hosted 170 grassroots events in 112 cities in mainland China.
'Managing the huge demand is our biggest challenge, and the growth isn't going to slow,' said Mark Fischer, senior vice-president, NBA China, based in Beijing. 'We have 90 people working in four offices in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Shanghai and Beijing. Ten years ago, it was just a few people running the whole region out of Hong Kong.'
After the first NBA pre-season exhibition games in Beijing and Shanghai in 2004, NBA commissioner David Stern said he expected the organisation to expand in step with the country's burgeoning economy, which at that time was experiencing 9.3 per cent growth. It seems he may have underestimated its popularity.
The voracious demand has been stoked by relentless marketing and the licensing of brand, internet and television rights. In major markets, fans can see up to six live or delayed games a week either on CCTV or on local stations, together averaging 32 million viewers a week. In 2006-07, NBA games and programming were available on 51 television stations in China (up from 32 the year before).
