How popular is NBA in china?

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How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#1 » by moximus » Thu Feb 3, 2011 7:19 pm

I read that most kids in China know Kobe and NBA is extremely big over there. Fact?
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#2 » by The_Ghost_of_JB » Thu Feb 3, 2011 7:28 pm

Must be very popular if they help vote in Yao ming as an NBA all star starter. What has he played? Like 5 games this year?
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#3 » by Patterns » Thu Feb 3, 2011 7:38 pm

moximus wrote:I read that most kids in China know Kobe and NBA is extremely big over there. Fact?

Fact. NBA was big in China when Jordan played but people didn't have access to the good television service or the internet back then. Now people have all of that and money.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#4 » by airball3 » Thu Feb 3, 2011 7:43 pm

The NBA is very big in China, or atleast in the village I visited this summer I went. I watched a bit of the playoffs there and some of the kids and adults there are very passionate about basketball. It was really fun watching all the kids root for Kobe in their knock-off jerseys tho! :D The thing is that they have access to the key games through the state owned channels so it'll only get bigger there.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#5 » by MaxRider » Thu Feb 3, 2011 7:57 pm

airball3 wrote:The NBA is very big in China, or atleast in the village I visited this summer I went. I watched a bit of the playoffs there and some of the kids and adults there are very passionate about basketball. It was really fun watching all the kids root for Kobe in their knock-off jerseys tho! :D The thing is that they have access to the key games through the state owned channels so it'll only get bigger there.

what village you visited?
last time i was there in shenzhen i hardly see anyone wearing nba stuff
they are showing games on national tv there (i was there during playoff)
they are showing the game live during day (night in usa) and replay during night time and replay again during late night
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#6 » by LApwnd » Thu Feb 3, 2011 7:59 pm

should be big, thats where all our NBA products are made :wink:
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#7 » by JasonDaPsycho » Thu Feb 3, 2011 8:01 pm

They know the big names and of course Yao Ming. To them NBA = Lakers, Celtics and Rockets + the rest. They're kind of like any casual fans out here in the States, only they don't ride on Lebron / Kobe's jock, but Yao Ming's.
Oh and it's very popular. That's for sure. Again, credit goes to Yao Ming. He IS the Chinese NBA market.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#8 » by Harry_Seaward » Thu Feb 3, 2011 8:03 pm

They hail at the shrine of Kobe, they built a museum for LeBron, they anticipate every move Yao Ming makes...I think they're addicted.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#9 » by Cigamodnalro » Thu Feb 3, 2011 8:07 pm

Know teams, but not players, from my experience. I asked a kid in a KG jersey in Wuhan about Garnett, and he had no idea who he was. He did know the Celtics though.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#10 » by Cigamodnalro » Thu Feb 3, 2011 8:08 pm

Oh, and they LOVE Kobe. Kobe is EVERYWHERE in China. Exception to my previous post.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#11 » by underpressure » Thu Feb 3, 2011 9:02 pm

Basketball in general is very big in China. It really spreads from people who have a basic knowledge of the game (everybody knows at least Yao, Yi, Wang Zhizhi) to people who follow the league regularly. It isn't like in Europe where just a limited number of people know the NBA and the featured players.

How big basketball is, you have to go to some places which are in general off-limits to foreigners to really sense the vibe. I happened to be in a very small village in rural Guangxi and I was told that they feature basketball tournaments of all adjacent villages each year. And that place didn't even have any electricity to even consume internet, TV and thus NBA.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#12 » by airball3 » Thu Feb 3, 2011 9:21 pm

MaxRider wrote:
airball3 wrote:The NBA is very big in China, or atleast in the village I visited this summer I went. I watched a bit of the playoffs there and some of the kids and adults there are very passionate about basketball. It was really fun watching all the kids root for Kobe in their knock-off jerseys tho! :D The thing is that they have access to the key games through the state owned channels so it'll only get bigger there.

what village you visited?
last time i was there in shenzhen i hardly see anyone wearing nba stuff
they are showing games on national tv there (i was there during playoff)
they are showing the game live during day (night in usa) and replay during night time and replay again during late night


I went to this tiny village called Xin Hui (3 hour bus ride from Hong Kong) and it was this summer. I went to a morning tea place and I got there a bit late but they were already showing the Celtics vs. Lakers finals game there on their old crt tvs. Think I was the only guy cheering for the Celtics in the entire place :lol:
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#13 » by Raptors_Dynasty » Thu Feb 3, 2011 9:59 pm

Cigamodnalro wrote:Know teams, but not players, from my experience. I asked a kid in a KG jersey in Wuhan about Garnett, and he had no idea who he was. He did know the Celtics though.


What were you doing in WuHan?
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#14 » by Jhoby » Thu Feb 3, 2011 10:20 pm

I lived in Shanghai over the summer, and definitely saw a huge NBA fanbase. I'd say 75% of the NBA gear I saw was Kobe and the Lakers (Even saw a Sun Yue jersey), but there were also a lot of people who repped the Celtics. Lebron wasn't as prevalent as I thought he would be... At local pickup games, most people rocked Kobe gear, and also still love AI. A lot of them don't really know about the NBA though, they just wear the gear.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#15 » by NOODLESTYLE » Thu Feb 3, 2011 10:48 pm

Marbury knows:

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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#16 » by o0dong » Thu Feb 3, 2011 11:20 pm

Nike isn't dumb and just by looking at the amount of advertisement they put up of Kobe everywhere it seems like it's very popular. Honestly I saw more pictures/ giant billboards of Kobe in Shanghai/Beijing than anyone else including the biggest Chinese celebrities.
Nike Beijing was more like a Kobe shrine but honestly I think they are more fair weather fans as the general populous would never buy any nba gear and honestly think that Kobe is head and shoulders above Dwyane Wade/ Lebron James.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#17 » by Patterns » Thu Feb 3, 2011 11:42 pm

JasonDaPsycho wrote:They know the big names and of course Yao Ming. To them NBA = Lakers, Celtics and Rockets + the rest. They're kind of like any casual fans out here in the States, only they don't ride on Lebron / Kobe's jock, but Yao Ming's.
Oh and it's very popular. That's for sure. Again, credit goes to Yao Ming. He IS the Chinese NBA market.

No you are very wrong. Completely wrong. Their favorite player is Kobe Bryant by far. Kobe got the loudest ovation in the 08 Olympics out of any athlete from any country in any sport.

They don't really like Yao that much. They are all about Kobe and Jordan. Believe me. First hand experience.
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#18 » by peZt » Fri Feb 4, 2011 12:49 pm

I didn't know where to put it so i write it here.
I think there might be the 2nd Yao coming to the basketball world.
China will participate at a U16 Tournament in turkey tommorow and one of their players is 14 years old and 7'1'' (!!) tall :o :o
I have no Idea about his basketball skills but that guy might grow to about 7'5 or 7'6 :o

I guess that its the guy in the middle
http://tbf.org.tr/tbfweb/tbfweb2.nsf/99 ... Format=jpg

His name Qi Zhou
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Re: How popular is NBA in china? 

Post#19 » by sorokii » Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:13 am

Patterns wrote:
JasonDaPsycho wrote:They know the big names and of course Yao Ming. To them NBA = Lakers, Celtics and Rockets + the rest. They're kind of like any casual fans out here in the States, only they don't ride on Lebron / Kobe's jock, but Yao Ming's.
Oh and it's very popular. That's for sure. Again, credit goes to Yao Ming. He IS the Chinese NBA market.

No you are very wrong. Completely wrong. Their favorite player is Kobe Bryant by far. Kobe got the loudest ovation in the 08 Olympics out of any athlete from any country in any sport.

They don't really like Yao that much. They are all about Kobe and Jordan. Believe me. First hand experience.

I live in China and I can assure you that if it´s not because of Yao Ming they wouldnt know who Kobe is. Yao is not a loved sportsman there, he is a hero, an icon, a legend. Even the Chinese Goverment hired Yao to make advertisements of public interest, last one I remember to encourage Chinese people to drink milk.

Of course now after the years, they are used to hear about NBA so they are familiar to big names and they have other idols like Kobe. Also their knowledge is not really deep, they know Kobe, Lebron or the big names but they dont have a clue on who Jason Terry is, for example. And last but not least, dont forget that it is a really huge market, so they average knowledge is almost null, we are talking about 1,300 million of people so 90% of them absolutely dont know.
da da da da daaaaaa...

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