The financial crisis has no doubt severely affected most sports franchises, and alternate sources of income have become a major priority in the off-season.

China is the world’s largest basketball market, and still one that is relatively untapped. Chinese companies have a warm spot for western sports teams and brands in their marketing mix. The number 1 foreign import that Chinese people can associate with is sports, and so a link and connection with these popular western sports brands give a high level of prestige and respect to any local brand that is seen in association with them. Some companies even go to questionable extents  to secure these high profile brand image boosts.

Even the NBA itself has entered many partnerships with local businesses in recent months. These sponsorships have helped them grow their brand with basketball tournaments, cheerleading competitions, and reality TV shows. The NBA was instrumental in helping Mengniu, the popular Chinese Dairy brand, regain some status after the Melamine incident had dropped consumer confidence to an all time low.

Li Ning, China’s most succesful sports apparel company, also has benefited greatly from sports marketing. Nike and Adidas being its main competitors, Li Ning went out and used most of its marketing Reminbi in sponsorship deals to attact NBA stars: Shaquille O’Neal (for 1.6 million dollars), Baron Davis, Jose Calderon and Damon Jones, as well as the whole Spanish Basketball National Team.

But what about the Washington Wizards? In Gilbert Arenas, the Wizards have one of the most marketable players in the league. Chinese fans already know him through his many baskebtall exploits and being on many Adidas Brotherhood adverts. But especially in China where the average young NBA fan is also very in tune with  technology/gaming/blogging – Gilbert Arenas with his quirky and very open and honest personality could be a mega star. Give Arenas more exposure in China, and there is no doubt that he will thrive and become an icon. Agent Zero – who may have seemed like a liability to the Wizards organization back at the peak of his blogging days, could very well be their window of opportunity in the world’s largest basketball market. Chinese NBA fans don’t follow teams, they follow players..specifically superstars with interesting personalities.

For NBA teams wanting to do business in China the possibilities are there and in such a huge market there will always be opportunities. The important thing is to remember what interests and excites average Chinese people. Teams really need to think about why Kobe is so much bigger than LeBron here, why someone like Damon Jones was the first NBA player to get a major China sponsorship deal, why Shane Battier was the face of the Peak brand.

NBA teams and players also need to be ready to go beyond the traditional marketing strategies if they want a true following in China. A simple brand association is no longer good enough to make major headlines – visits to China, donations in times of disasters (like the Sichuan earthquake), participation in grassroot programs and camps, China oriented charities, and special attention to the Chinese people will be ultimately what sways China. This is already one of the main reasons why the NBA is so ahead of other foreign sports leagues – they came here and have invested in the country for years. When David Stern first came to China some decades ago, he practically paid China to air its NBA games on national television. This is in stark contrast to the English Premiership that today no longer has any matches on national TV due to the large amount of money they have requested.

The NBA gave and gave and gave, and now its time for the NBA and its partners to reap the benefits.

As promised, below are a couple of videos that you can watch from the NBA reality show in China called “Mengniu Basketball Disciple”.

While the level of play is quite low (around US Varsity level), the show is well edited/produced and they manage to fit in quite abit into the 45 minute time allocated per show. Some background is given on the players, they talk about their favorite NBA players, they do drills, get evaluated by the American coaches, participate in contests and games, and in the end players are voted off by the coach in charge and one MVP is chosen.

NBA reality show in Chengdu Region:

NBA reality show in Jinan Region:

NBA reality show in Shengyang Region:

Despite having to get up for work the next day, I decided to stay up until 3am instead of banking in some sleep hours, just to make sure I had the right setup going into the game. While two channels in Shanghai broadcasted the game live – the government owned (CCTV 5) channel focused on sports, and the privately ran Shanghai Sports channel – I was forced to rely on the internet as I only receive digital reception as opposed to the standard analog which currently carries these 2 channels.

But no biggie, as many Chinese youngsters across the country were in the same situation as me – whether in some dorm room somewhere shared with a half dozen classmates or in their parent’s homes wanting to follow the game without their parents knowing – essentially with a lack of personal access to TV. Such surroundings and lifestyles has developed a culture in China, where individuals rely on the internet for anything and everything.

Live sports streaming particularly is a popular alternative to TV in China for today’s youth, and while the quality is worlds apart from the HD quality that our fellow fans in the U.S get to enjoy, it is certainly watchable.

So I spent about an hour before tip off making sure I had all 15 or so different free software that people used for streaming games, I ran some checks to see which stream could be the best quality and after a considerable amount of time I had to concede to watching it over the Chinese commentating on CCTV 5. My Mandarin listening skills are quite limited but it doesn’t take a fluent speaker to realize that the Chinese commentators still have a way to go before reaching the likes of Marv Albert…or yet alone Reggie Miller! They seem to watch it more as fans than trained commentators with often screaming and cheering, and analysis of plays usually limited to “Nice Basket!” or “Beautiful!”. This is an area that the NBA in China needs to develop because quality commentating truly makes a difference, you don’t realize it until you’ve really watched a game anywhere outside the U.S.

So there I was in the wee hours of the morning, eyes red from a long day of mental and physical preparation to be able to stay up for this game, laying on my bed in my PJ’s, laptop on my lap, my poor girlfriend subjected to my NBA addiction sleeping trying to sleep besides me, and me watching a sub-Betamax quality NBA stream with Chinese commentating blasting on my earphones. “Where will amazing happen this year” is this year’s playoff slogan, well I’d like to believe us international NBA fans who have to put up with this contribute a little ‘amazing’ each and every year.

After the first half and a decisive defensive showing by the Lakers, I decided to call it a night and conserve some energy for the day ahead and another Game 7 that I refuse to miss out on.

Before I went to sleep, I passed by NBA.com’s official stream site on the internet for Chinese fans, NBA.tom.com/video, where thousands of like minded fans were live chatting in a chat box besides the stream. A quick scroll through of the chat revealed the expected: lots of swearing and exclamation marks, and people cheering the Rockets on despite what seemed like an insurmountable task ever since China’s own Yao Ming broke his foot.

But much like this years’ Houston Rockets, the Chinese basketball fans were indifferent to the reality at hand after so many years of being ignored – and knew that tonight, the only thing lost would be a good night’s sleep.

The NBA store in China is a fitting representation of the NBA’s strategy in China.

The U.S only has one NBA store to its name, while as of today, China already has six NBA stores in place to serve up its hungry fanbase: two stores in Beijing which opened up last year , two stores in Shanghai, and two in Changsha. That number is projected to be around 20 by the end of this year – and there is not even a glimpse of a league yet despite the formation of the NBA China entity.

In the summer of 2008 the NBA announced a partnership with the JuneYao Group (famous for launching China’s first privately operated charter plane service in the early 90’s). The plan is to use JuneYao’s local marketing expertise to set up a total of 2,000 branded retail outlets in China within the next couple of years.

At NBA China’s official store, fans can browse through an online store that gives them information on shops, products, events and promotions related exclusively to China. You can’t actually purchase anything from the store, so you will have to go check out one of their stores in person to get a hold of your favorite team’s apparel.

I did just that by going to Shanghai’s newly opened NBA Store this weekend (which according to the official site, isn’t even open yet). It’s situated in Shanghai’s most crowded shopping street (558 Nanjing Dong Lu) – and is said to have around 770 meter square of retail floor area . While there wasn’t exactly an overabundance of choices, they did have the standard range of products including NBA jerseys, shoes, basketball, bags, cups, cards, toys, key chains, memorabilia, and a variety of other accessories. Prices were quite high by China’s standards, but in line with other high end sports stores such as Nike and Adidas. Overall, it was a satisfying experience and the NBA brand was well presented. What remains to be seen is how China’s fake goods markets will react to this official licensed products nonsense…  

I leave you with some pictures from the  NBA Shanghai Store store on 558 Nanjing Dong Lu (Street):

Unsurprisingly, most of the products are for the Rockets, Celtics, Lakers, and Cavaliers. Other featured teams include ones with superstars (Magic, Heat, Wizards)…and the Milwaukee Bucks trying hard to get rid of their now useless Yi Jianlin stock.

Shaq’s poor free throw percentage explained.

It wouldn’t be a true Chinese NBA store without a Yao Ming bobblehead…

FYI, I’m 6’1 MAX…and I don’t think I really stand a chance guarding Dwight Howard as this picture seems to suggest…

Locals checking out the gear.

Warning: Jerseys aren’t of the highest quality!

The perfect item for spicing up the bedroom?…maybe in China.