'Stand With Hong Kong'? Not When N.B.A.'s Chinese Fortune Is on the Line
The stakes are particularly high for the N.B.A. in China. Tencent Holdings, a Chinese tech conglomerate, reported that 490 million people watched N.B.A. programming on its platforms last year, including 21 million fans who watched Game 6 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals. By comparison, Nielsen measured 18.3 million viewers for the game on the American network ABC.The league recently announced a five-year extension of its partnership with Tencent to stream its games in China for a reported $1.5 billion.The league has 41.8 million followers on Weibo, a popular Chinese social network, compared with 38.6 million followers on Facebook and 28.4 million on Twitter.