If The Chinese Shoe Fits The NBA Will Wear It
To that old saying about the things that one should never see we can now say the making of laws, the making of sausage and the making of running shoes.
That’s the harsh lesson we’ve learned in the China/ NBA episode: the league in controlled by NIKE and the other running-shoe manufacturers who drown the sport with billions of sponsorship dollars from prep schools to the pros. And NIKE— which makes shoes for $2 in China that it sells for $200 in North America— is controlled by the whims of the brutal Chinese leadership.
NIKE controls the NBA players with lucrative personal endorsement deals worth an estimated $1 B under its latest contract. It controls the NBA’s marketing with its enormous investment in China’s burgeoning basketball fan base that numbers over a billion. It blankets American culture through its pervasive TV and advertising presence. Hell, its logo appears on the NBA uniforms.
It has also indulged the political vanities of NBA players and coaches who regularly rail against American culture. If you think NIKE isn’t actively undermining the political establishment of America— while simultaneously playing footsie with the totalitarian Chinese regime— you need to acquaint yourself with the Colin Kapernick caper.
How does China rule NIKE? When Houston Rockets GM Darryl Morey— whose team is a favourite in China after Yao Ming starred for them— piped up about the precarious state of Hong Kong versus China he probably thought he’d get plenty of cover from the leftist corporate media and the Ché Guevaras who shoot three pointers or catch touchdowns.
Bad assumption. The politburo in Beijing immediately stomped on him, the NBA and the feckless footwear folks at NIKE. The 1.3 billion person market that floats the caviar wishes and Cristal dreams of the NBA was suddenly in jeopardy for the league and NIKE. While the preseason games in China went on they were not broadcast in China, and censors removed any contrary political activists from the crowds. An estimated 11 of 14 major contracts between the league and the Chinese were said to be in danger of cancellation.
This all could cost the league $1.5 B TV deal in China. And those men playing a boy’s game could see their compensation tumble like a Kawhi Leonard jump shot.
While it’s not as toxic as the Tiananmen Square days when the regime literally crushed opponents, the Chinese are sore at Trump’s tariffs and its need to import large supplies of fuel from the West to keep its emerging middle class from tossing them out. They like to remind the people who take their money just what the stiff terms of the contract are for entry into the Chinese market.
You remember those submarine movies where the siren goes off and the captain shouts Dive! Dive! Dive! That’s pretty much what happened at the NBA’s NYC headquarters and the NIKE campus in Portland, Oregon. Panic set in. Commissioner Adam Silver immediately decamped to China to placate the political masters who play defence like a billion Dikembe Mutombos.
Just as quickly, those NBA coaches like Steve Kerr and Greg Popovich and players such as LeBron James— who never lack for a lecture on the corruption of America— went silent about China’s aggressive treatment of Hong Kong. Where they score daily brownie points with shots at Donald Trump and the gun culture, they had nothing to say about a regime that has over a million people in concentration camps and thinks little of executing political prisoners. “Need more information”, said former MVP Steph Curry.
People who refuse to visit the White House seem only too happy for a day trip to the Forbidden City to do China’s commercial bidding. In case any players wanted to stray too far from the party line, the NBA cancelled press availabilities for players before and after preseason games. If you look up obsequious in the dictionary there’s going to be an NBA logo right next to it.
The NBA— through its surrogate NIKE— seems only too happy to pay the bill for placating China even as it rails against America. How much will this slavish loyalty to the interests of a running-shoe company hurt the NBA—particularly in Canada after its Raptors Romance? Not half as much as the departure of Leonard to Los Angeles.
But remember the next time you buy a pair of Nike LeBron XIII Men Synthetic Basketball Shoes that your loyalty to LeBron is only a portal to a much darker truth.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). He’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also the best-selling author of Cap In Hand which is available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca