NBA to Return to China with Multiyear Deal In Macau

NBA to host pre-season video games in Macau from 2025

Deal marks NBA’s go back to China after 2019 debate

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Macau gambling establishments aiming to enhance non-gaming profits

(Rewrites to add context that deal marks NBA’s go back to China)

By Farah Master

HONG KONG, Dec 6 (Reuters) – The National Basketball Association (NBA) has signed a multiyear offer to play pre-season games in Macau from 2025, marking the league’s go back to the Chinese market after a years-long lack that followed debate over the 2019 Hong Kong protests.

Local media priced estimate NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum as stating the NBA would host two pre-season games annually for the next 5 years at gambling establishment operator Sands China’s Venetian arena in Macau, an unique administrative area of China. The first video games, set up for October of next year, will pit the Brooklyn Nets versus the Phoenix Suns.

A source acquainted with the matter confirmed the regional media reports of the offer. The NBA did not immediately react to an ask for comment.

Although China has recently hosted NBA legends star video games, including one set up for Saturday at the Venetian property, the pre-season deal will mark a return of routinely set up NBA play to China.

The NBA’s absence followed a firestorm of controversy around remarks five years back by the Houston Rockets’ then-General Manager Daryl Morey, who posted a message on social media in support of anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong.

Beijing suspended the broadcast of NBA video games following that incident, prompting corporate sponsors to run away and the league to suffer what it described at the time as significant financial effects. Pre-season NBA games in China were likewise scrapped.

In February, Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball group and chairman of Chinese tech business Alibaba, stated the event was water under the bridge which the NBA would like to bring games back to China and Macau.

Macau is the only location in China where citizens are able to lawfully gamble in gambling establishments.

Its government and Beijing have been advising the six – Wynn Macau, Sands China, SJM Holdings, Galaxy Entertainment, Melco and MGM China – to increase their proportion of earnings from non-gaming.

Macau’s economy is heavily based on the casino market, which contributes around 80% of local tax earnings.

Last year, Macau’s government presented its first blueprint centred on a method where tourist and leisure are the primary pillars, supported by emerging industries such as conventional Chinese medicine, health, financial services and technology, in addition to conventions, exhibits, trade, culture and sports.

It aims for non-gaming markets to account for around 60% of Macau’s GDP by 2028 versus 50% pre-pandemic in 2019.

(Reporting by Farah Master; Additional reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Nicholas Yong and Edmund Klamann)