
NBA's China dilemma: $4B at risk as Chinese TV cancels game broadcasts - Alupis
https://www.foxbusiness.com/sports/nba-china-revenue-business-sponsors
======
tw04
The NBA really needs to grow a spine on this one. They have nothing to lose
but incremental profits and in the long run China will lose. It will just be
one more reminder for the populace that their current government restricts
them from luxuries the rest of the world gets to experience. And if that
doesn't bother them, good riddance I guess, it's not like China is going to
come up with their own basketball league that's going to overtake the NBA,
ever.

~~~
ivankolev
They are taking a stance: [https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/media/nba-adam-
silver/index.h...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/media/nba-adam-
silver/index.html)

~~~
munificent
My I'm just feeling cynical, but this just sounds to me like an easy way to
have it both ways:

1\. Placate the US by putting out a public statement saying "We support
freedom of speech for our people."

2\. Placate China by using a backchannel to ensure that no one in the NBA
actually _uses_ this nominal freedom to say something that hurts China's
feelings.

Actually standing up would require supporting a statement that had been said
instead of offerring vague support for future statements which may or may not
ever occur.

~~~
wuliwong
You are just theorizing that #2 is happening with no evidence.

~~~
sverige
The evidence is that they didn't support the original tweet that caused all
the ruckus, and there hasn't been a flood of tweets or other expressions of
support for HK by other NBA people since the NBA made the statement.

~~~
joelx
We should boycott the NBA.

~~~
jmpman
We can do better than that. Show up at every Brooklyn Nets game, sitting
behind the basket with signs which... aren’t China friendly.

~~~
wuliwong
Apparently people have done that and have gotten kicked out of NBA preseason
games in the United States!

[https://www.dailywire.com/news/shameful-fans-with-free-
hong-...](https://www.dailywire.com/news/shameful-fans-with-free-hong-kong-
sign-kicked-out-of-nba-game/)

------
SilasX
Is it just me, or are there a lot of stories now about China throwing its
financial weight around to influence speech?

We had the Blizzard/War of Omens thing [1], and the Houston Rockets remark
being rescinded [2], and the South Park cancellation [3], and now this, all in
the span of about a week.

[1] [https://www.cnet.com/news/blizzard-removes-blitzchung-
from-h...](https://www.cnet.com/news/blizzard-removes-blitzchung-from-
hearthstone-grand-masters-after-his-public-support-for-hong-kong-protests/)

[2] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/houston-rockets-gm-morey-
del...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/houston-rockets-gm-morey-deletes-
tweet-about-hong-kong.html)

[3]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dek3kl/south_par...](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dek3kl/south_park_scrubbed_from_chinese_internet_after/)

~~~
repolfx
Also the UBS pig incident:

[https://fortune.com/2019/06/17/ubs-china-pig-paul-
donovan/](https://fortune.com/2019/06/17/ubs-china-pig-paul-donovan/)

That one wasn't even anything apparently political, just absurd snowflake-
scale sensitivity on the part of a whole country:

 _Donovan made the “Chinese pig” comment on Wednesday as he attempted to
explain why the country’s swine flu outbreak shouldn’t concern investors
eyeing the international inflation outlook._

 _“Does this matter? It matters if you are a Chinese pig,” Donovan said. “It
matters if you like eating pork in China. It does not really matter to the
rest of the world. China does not export a lot of food. The only global
relevance would be if Chinese inflation influenced politics and other
policies.”_

Somehow the second sentence got interpreted as an insult - or was it just part
of a trend of throwing weight around, as you suggest?

 _One of China’s biggest state-owned infrastructure companies excluded UBS
Group AG from a bond deal after the bank’s global chief economist sparked a
furor with his use of the phrase “Chinese pig.”_

 _The comment was condemned by two Communist Party publications and by trade
groups representing Chinese brokerages. Haitong International Securities
Group, which competes against UBS for China-related business, said on Friday
that it had suspended its activities with the bank._

Honestly, having watched this sort of stuff for years my own business interest
in China is dead. Yes, it's a big market. But you can live very comfortably
serving the rest of the world. Facebook and Google are banned there, they
still mint more money than they can spend. Ignoring that market completely
seems like a recipe for a much simpler life.

~~~
VladimirIvanov
I didn't follow this at the time but I can immediately see that there exactly
two ways to interpret the "Chinese pig" comment and one is very insulting. I'm
guessing that the person who said the quote did not mean it as an insult

~~~
repolfx
No, there's really no sane way to interpret that statement as being insulting.
The entire statement was about swine flu, pork production and other very
obviously pig-related things. Only a terribly incompetent mistranslation could
have yielded an insult out of it, and such a mistranslation would surely have
been detected immediately.

There's just no sensible explanation for why anyone would get upset by that
statement.

------
diveanon
A presidential candidates stance on China and its abuse of human rights will
be a key issue for me in 2020.

What is happening to the NBA, Blizzard, and seemingly every company that has a
presence in China is the tip of the iceberg.

If we as a liberal free society cannot stand against the rise of oppressive
totalitarianism then we are doomed to fail.

Incremental profits and potential market share in a closed economy is not
worth the values we are sacrificing in the process.

If you are a C-level executive at a company doing business in China these
issues need to addressed at the board level. What is the level of influence
that the Chinese government is exerting on you and your morals.

Your stance should be clear: You either support the people of HK and their
fight for representation in government, or you support the totalitarian regime
that is oppressing them and hundreds of millions of other Chinese citizens.

~~~
est
> A presidential candidates stance on China and its abuse of human rights will
> be a key issue for me in 2020.

Your presidential candidate need to fix human rights issues in Syria, Iraq and
Afghanistan. Democracy installed by the US government gotta have a warranty
and customer service.

If the outcome of US installed human rights means tens of thousands of
refugees and jihad fighters how can your model of human rights even work in a
1.4B population China?

~~~
diveanon
You can't have it both ways, we gave Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to
elect a representative government, it is not our place to complain about the
representatives they elected.

How many revolutions and dictatorships did the French have to go through until
they settled on a system that works for them?

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> we gave Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to elect a representative
> government, it is not our place to complain about the representatives they
> elected.

The USA insisted on representative government _within those countries’
existing borders_. So much of the strife in those countries is ethnic-based.
If regions were given options for secession, then some of the new territorial
formations that resulted may well have become more politically stable. Just
look at how much better off Iraqi Kurdistan is, which is as close as it can
get to independence, than the rest of Iraq.

------
libertine
This reminds me of a story a teacher of mine told in a Advertising class,
about a retailer that put pressure on a soda maker to lower prices, or they
wouldn't give them share of shelf.

Well the soda maker didn't agree, so they pulled the inventory out.

Weeks later the retailer came back to invite them in at the same rates.
Apparently the customers weren't happy that their favorite soda wasn't
available, and made sure to let the staff know.

If China starts to pull the plug on unique products and services, I believe
there's going to be a ripple effect. I'm pretty sure there are millions of
people in China that still enjoy the NBA, despite NBA's stance on what ever
the subject is.

This will add up. Maybe the fear of instability through Western propaganda
should be matched by the instability that the actualization of censorship is
alive and well, via the ban of content people like.

Maybe not.

~~~
xlc0212
I want to point it out it is not only Chinese government, but also Chinese
people, the people were enjoying the NBA, are abandoning it. This actually
hurts the feeling of the fans.

~~~
chibg10
While this definitely exists, I’m not completely convinced the true intensity
of the Chinese exactly matches the front that Beijing allows forth. I’m
confident that most Chinese are unhappy (maybe very unhappy) with the
comments, but an entirely organic nationwide boycott seems a little farfetched
to me. Chinese aren’t robots; there’s significant variance of opinions and
eagerness about politics among them just like all other humans.

However, if the government chooses to grease the wheels of fury or even light
the flame via astroturfing while simultaneously censoring dissenting opinions,
they look mighty unified.

Remember, this tweet was on _Twitter_. Twitter is banned in China, which
raises the question of how this became such a mainstream issue there
organically. Sure, I suppose it’s possible that an expat reshared it on Weibo
and the entire country went bananas but that seems a like a bit of a stretch
to me.

~~~
duguxu
Why are you confident about Chinese? Do you have any evidence directly from
mainland Chinese to support your arguments, or only speculations?

~~~
king_panic
I am also confident that the Chinese aren't robots. Sadly I have no evidence
directly from mainland China, you could say it's simply speculation.

------
tibbydudeza
Well give them a handout as the US soybean farmers got for Chinese cutting
imports due to trade war ... this is no different.

You either engage with China and turn a blind eye to their internal repression
or totally decouple yourself from them ... can't have your cake and eat it.

------
ineedasername
This reminds me of the issues faced by people developing apps that compete
with facebook, or apps that offer a nice feature for iOS. There's always the
risk that an ecosystem you don't control will turn on you, or change the rules
of the game.

Except with China it's 1000x worse. It's not an app, it's not just an extra
feature, it's the wholesale export of their authoritarian society to the rest
of the world. When the statements of a user of your system (as with
Hearthstone) risks your company being banned in China, self-censorship
inevitably ensues. How long will it be until China insists that anyone,
anywhere be deplatformed for this sort of thing?

------
mytailorisrich
That's the point. The scale of China's reaction is obviously not because of
the tweet itself but because of the trade war.

The message is that the US have a lot to lose if China starts to also
effectively blacklist American companies like the US try to do to Chinese
companies...

Edit: Someone should explain why now on HN a comment like this one that simply
tries to look beyond the obvious and to discuss current issues with a bit more
depth is received so negatively as soon as posted.

~~~
ticmasta
Well, we saw with the USSR that decades of Cold War couldn't be defused
politically but Levis and Coca Cola went a long way towards bridging the
divide.

Now we have China which is basketball-mad but the problem is we can't use the
carrot of the NBA to entice them towards us as long as the NBA is willing to
trade their product under China's terms for a big enough paycheque. The NBA's
attempt to paint themselves as a non-participant is totally unacceptable. You
either stand for something or you stand for nothing; you don't get to quietly
profit from the situation while declaring you have no position. That's the
"good people on both sides" argument we rightly called out as total BS.

~~~
mytailorisrich
The NBA is about basketball, not about something that is quickly turning into
McCarthyism. Demanding that they should 'stand for something' is behaving
exactly how China and Chinese companies are accused of behaving.

The concept of "enticing China towards the US" is also naive at best. China is
not a small country that the US can turn into a satellite. It is a superpower
with its own views and interests and however its political regime will evolve
it will not be either aligned with or under the leadership of the US. The US
government knows that and _that_ is the problem they have with China.

~~~
dmitryminkovsky
Please see comments in this thread or Google about their standing for gender
issues in the United States. They’ve positioned themselves as social
conscious.

------
rsync
What if this blows up in the other direction ?

How many Chinese will pay attention to "whatever those people are doing in
Hong Kong" for the first time because of this ?

Which is to say, what if lots of young Chinese stand up and take notice that
they can't watch _world class_ professional basketball anymore ?

I am well aware that there is homegrown professional basketball in China, but
the $4B number suggests they want to watch the NBA, which isn't surprising.

It's not obvious to me that, from the position of youth in China, the state
holds the winning hand here ...

~~~
fiblye
For some reason, a lot of people have convinced themselves that youth around
the world all value rebellion and standing up for freedom. It’s not true. It’s
especially not true in China. Young people in China are generally ultra
nationalist and they support virtually everything the government does. If
China bans something, the overwhelming majority of them will have a dozen
reasons why it’s an excellent decision ready to go.

Don’t count on young people to take the west’s side on anything. They enjoy
our media and the products our mega corporations make, but they don’t need
them and they’ll switch to Chinese alternatives instantly.

~~~
navigatesol
> _Young people in China are generally ultra nationalist and they support
> virtually everything the government does._

Many Westerners have trouble coming to terms with things like "Not all the
Chinese hate the CCP", or "Russians are just regular people like you and me."

~~~
mediochrea
How many anti-government protests have you seen in China?

------
i_am_nomad
The NBA boycotted North Carolina over HB2 (the “bathroom bill”), but doesn’t
have a problem doing business in China. I hope they go bankrupt.

~~~
lern_too_spel
They did one thing right but did another thing wrong. Is that worse than doing
two things wrong?

~~~
i_am_nomad
No, it only shows that they essentially have no principles at all, or at least
none that they’re willing to lose money over (which is ultimately the same
thing). It’s always useful when someone reveals their true moral fiber, as the
NBA has done.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Why are both the same thing? If it doesn't cost me anything to fight injustice
and I don't do it, that is strictly worse than if it doesn't cost me to fight
injustice and I do.

Suppose the NBA gave the middle finger to Saudi Arabia but cozied up to China,
would that be worse than if they cozied up to both? Your stance is wildly
illogical.

~~~
filoleg
It isn’t about what they did, it is the justification they gave for doing or
not doing it.

If they said “we cozied up to China, but didn’t cozy up to SA because it made
business sense in the former scenario but not in the latter one”, that would
be one thing. But if they said “we cozied up to China because we want to stay
out of politics and be neutral” while still not cozying it up to SA and
flaunting how morally righteous they were for giving SA the finger, that’s a
very different scenario.

At best, it is just dishonest and hypocritical.

~~~
lern_too_spel
You're talking about being strictly global utilitarian in all actions which is
completely unworkable when it endangers the actor. Of course, they aren't as
hard on China because of money. I don't see why they need to spell it out so
as not to appear dishonest — it's so obvious that it can be assumed.

That doesn't mean it is better to also not be hard on North Carolina, which is
OP's error. There is no moral framework in which appearance of hypocrisy is
worse than not helping others.

~~~
CompanionCuuube
Their actions also go against deontological ethics as well.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Indeed, but not doing anything in both cases is still _worse_ in that system,
which is the point. You have to do wild contortions to make doing one fewer
good thing _better_ .

~~~
Dylan16807
It's more manipulative and does a better job of revealing their true motives.
Doing a tiny good deed for manipulative reasons can be a net negative.

~~~
lern_too_spel
> Doing a tiny good deed for manipulative reasons can be a net negative.

In this case, how?

~~~
Dylan16807
A company that does a good deed will draw attention and support away from
other companies. If the good deed was done for ethical reasons, then that
attention and support will feed further good deeds in the future. If it was
done for manipulative reasons, then it dilutes the money going to the more
ethical companies. The manipulative company is less likely to do good deeds in
the future. It's more likely to ignore opportunities, or to do easier and less
meaningful good deeds.

In other words, it's not a one-off. There is the same positive effect in the
short term, but the long term differs.

All of that logic could easily apply to this scenario.

For a simpler scenario, if a company does a good deed to apologize for a bad
deed, and the good deed is smaller but gets them off the hook, then that's a
very clear net negative.

~~~
lern_too_spel
In what way would the long term effect be worse if they had not done anything
in North Carolina? Did their actions in North Carolina keep them alive long
enough to apologize to China?

~~~
CompanionCuuube
"But why male models?"

------
jackschultz
Fun to see the NBA come up on HN.

One topic to bring up is how the NBA is targeting India as it's next country
to try to bring basketball to [0]. What should happen to comments people might
have about the India-Pakistan boarder conflict? Would the people here
commenting about how rich people shouldn't be targeting China for money and
growth complain about the NBA looking to grow in other markets? They've grown
incredibly large in Europe over the past couple decades. Yes for money, but
also popularity is fun to have, and amazing stories of players from those
places.

I suppose my current stance on this, and a stance after only a few days and
reading comments and posts from so many people which might change later or
after responses to my comment here, is that the NBA should wave its hands and
say the other countries can do what they want in terms of not even admitting
the Rockets exist, or hide games completely, but reiterate that the players,
GMs, and even owners, can say what they want, and that the NBA can and should
continue to push the NBA to other markets.

[0] [https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/asia/nba-india-intl-hnk-
scli/...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/asia/nba-india-intl-hnk-
scli/index.html))

------
Shivetya
NBA?

How about the US government? I know in another post I made the point that we
could not just call out Blizzard or other game companies but instead have to
call out ALL companies that do business in China and worse crack down on their
own and related who dare say something China does not approve of.

However the real party that has to be taken to task is our own governments. In
the US that means both Congress and the Administration. That means all
candidates for President need to state their stance NOW.

How it plays out in the EU I have no idea, news of any of their businesses or
governments bending to China's will are pretty much absent from US news

edit:recently we have had major issues with privacy concerns, losing freedom
of speech is a form of that as well.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
_> How it plays out in the EU I have no idea, news of any of their businesses
or governments bending to China's will are pretty much absent from US news_

EU governments and companies bend over for China way easier than in the US as
there's a huge lack on unity in the EU where it's every country for itself
like when China protested on Norway's leaders not meeting the Dalai Lama and
Norway complied.[1]

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/norways-
lead...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/europe/norways-leaders-snub-
dalai-lama-in-deference-to-china.html)

~~~
tasubotadas
Not quite true.

* Vilnius takes down ads after China promotes unsanctioned commemoration – 'it's a geopolitical provocation' [1]

* Lithuania hands note to China over incident during Hong Kong support rally in Vilnius [2]

[1] [https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-
english/19/1100141/viln...](https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-
english/19/1100141/vilnius-takes-down-ads-after-china-promotes-unsanctioned-
commemoration-it-s-a-geopolitical-provocation-says-mp)

[2] [https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-
english/19/1093636/lith...](https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/news-in-
english/19/1093636/lithuania-hands-note-to-china-over-incident-during-hong-
kong-support-rally-in-vilnius)

Edit: Included titles

------
narrator
How about getting your morality and your values from organized religion or
your personal spirituality and not from a bunch of multi-millionaires who
throw a ball around? Organized religion is not allowed in China either.

You know something is allowed in China if it traces all its authority back to
exist back to the party. That's how communism has always operated. The success
of the party was the highest goal of highest goals that lead to all the purges
and terrors throughout history.

------
fhood
China presents a huge opportunity for growth to the NBA, and this is a really
crucial period for them as it seems like the NFL's stranglehold might be
weakening and extra money to reinvest might help that process. I don't
understand how people can act like losing the Chinese market is some sort of
trivial decision?!?

I would love for the NBA to stand up to China on this issue, but it IS NOT AN
EASY OR OBVIOUS DECISION.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Money or surrender to evil. It's pretty simple.

~~~
Ygg2
Seeing how we live in capitalism - money it is.

Remember when Google, promised it wouldn't kowtow to China? Then kowtowed
anyway.

~~~
bduerst
Except they didn't. Project Dragonfly was cancelled after Google employees
rebelled against it.

A better example would be how Apple quietly shared iCloud user data with the
Chinese government.

------
artur_makly
This says it all: [https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-
china](https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china)

~~~
scotty79
This got me to watch some South Park. I was at least few seasons behind. The
show is still interesting and has some strong episodes.

Episode "Dead Kids" for example (about school shootings) is amazing, and its
ending is absolutely brutal. I know it will stay with me for years.

[https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s22e01-dead-
kids](https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s22e01-dead-kids)

------
bilbo0s
Is this a dilemma though?

In fact, the more I think about this, is this even a problem?

I've been on Weibo a bit looking at reactions to all this, and here's the
thing, if your average mainlander is upset and no longer wants to have
anything to do with you, which, judging from the volume of comments seems to
be true, why is that necessarily a problem?

People can say whatever they want. And other people can associate with whoever
they want. Again, the more I thought about it, the more it struck me as simple
Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association in action.

Fine. Just don't watch NBA anymore. You have the CBA anyway. No worries and no
hard feelings. You do your thing in China and we'll do ours in the US.

~~~
qiaoliang89
cool

------
RenRav
The 4 Billion Dollar Tweet. That will surely end up as the title on some
future youtube video.

------
peignoir
South Park made the best analysis of this :) cf the last episode

------
j-c-hewitt
If you want to do business in China, you have to comply with Chinese laws
including those on speech. If you do not want to comply with those laws, you
cannot do business in China. Both are fine and both are legal, but you cannot
have it both ways at the same time.

You cannot flout the laws in China and continue to do business in China. This
should also be reciprocal: Chinese companies should not be able to do business
in the United States while flouting the laws of the United States.

------
aty268
If anyone is curious about what the pro China arguments look like:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/df2mym/blizzard_pulls...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/df2mym/blizzard_pulls_blitzchung_from_hearthstone/)

------
nostromo
It's not much of a dilemma though, is it? Already-rich folks kowtowing to
fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic.

US companies should stop targeting China for growth. If they don't steal your
IP completely, they'll eventually freeze you out like they just did the NBA.
It's happened to many companies and will eventually happen to you too. Play
stupid games, win stupid prizes.

~~~
nugget
>Already-rich folks kowtowing to fascists for a quick buck is beyond pathetic.

Most NBA team owners are already billionaires. I believe most of them are
self-made and have signed the giving pledge, meaning they will donate much of
their wealth to charities at or before their death. If anyone can afford to
take a stand, it would seem to be them.

~~~
tyre
The owner of the Nets is an executive at Alibaba. He will follow the party
line and has (calling Hong Kong protestors “separatists”, etc.)

The jersey sponsor of the LA Lakers is Wish.com, a company doing drop shipping
from China.

LeBron James is sponsored by Nike (as are all of the jerseys) and Nike has
significant interest in keeping the Chinese market open. LeBron is leading
production of Space Jam 2. He won’t jeopardize international acclaim and box
office revenue for this.

This is the same for every other player. Sponsorship deals with apparel
companies are a huge source of income. Few stars are untouchable and the ones
who are wont risk other business interests.

~~~
paggle
As Michael Jordan _didn 't_ say... "Republicans buy sneakers too."
Billionaires didn't get to be billionaires by leaving money on the table. We
need large scale political action against China.

~~~
FussyZeus
Billionaire's shouldn't exist. Name literally one benefit of having a
billionaire in our society. Any one thing we wouldn't otherwise have.

~~~
Pyxl101
The benefit of billionaires existing is that they made extraordinarily
valuable businesses. Take Steve Jobs or Bill Gates - if they didn’t exist then
Apple and Microsoft wouldn’t either. If Notch didn’t exist then neither would
Minecraft.

If you create something (a company, a video game, other IP), and people value
that thing at a billion dollars, then you’re a billionaire. Notch became a
billionaire after selling Minecraft because almost 100 million people play it.

What do you expect should happen if someone creates a thing of value worth a
billion dollars? Do you not want these things to be created? Do you not want
them to be sold? (Ownership has to change hands eventually; people don’t live
forever). How are you expecting society would work?

Reaping what you sow provides the incentive to work hard in our society.
Related:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html)

~~~
Dylan16807
> What do you expect should happen if someone creates a thing of value worth a
> billion dollars?

Let them have 50 or 100 million, then put the rest in the hands of the other
people that worked to make it happen. If all of those people are now rich,
then use the excess money to help the impoverished.

> Reaping what you sow provides the incentive to work hard in our society.

It's not binary. People don't get all the money or none of it. You can still
have ridiculously large amounts of monetary incentive without it being
possible to hit a billion dollars.

------
smkellat
Sometimes in trade and negotiations the most powerful tool is being able to
walk away. Relative to the PRC, it is past time that we start walking away.
There are certainly other partners available on the metaphorical dance card
who are easier to deal with.

------
NicoJuicy
Didn't China say they are willing to open their market more.

So, I think this proves that nothing changes. I'd be supprised that any TV-
channel could show a Winnie the Pooh figure ever again.

It's like one big kindergarden, but for >1 billion people.

------
myself248
> "We believe any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social
> stability do not belong to the category of free speech," CCTV Sports said in
> a statement.

I wonder what "free" does mean to them, then.

------
zenlot
Why recent articles on HN related to ICE were flagged and this one not? It's
political too, double standards?

------
malloreon
The moment the money becomes more important than the morality, the morality
leaves, never to return.

------
ilaksh
The problem is that the type of moral outrage in this thread is exactly the
kind of thing that is necessary to motivate mass killing (otherwise known as
war).

War is an appropriate conflict resolution approach for ant colonies, but not
for people. I hope people here realize that.

------
raldi
If you really want a revolution, take away the people's favorite televised
sports.

------
pitt1980
ctrl+f "free speech"

comes back empty

\------ \------

The 1st amendment only protects you from the US government, not the Chinese
government

this seems like a good example of why we need to rethink "...but not the
consequences of that speech!"

------
lvwu123
Its clearly that Morey using his influence that NBA gave to loudly interrupt
others business at PUBLIC. By the way I am Chinese and stay at China. I like
Basketball sport very much.

------
rdlecler1
The NBA should get up and leave China on principle. I don’t doubt that this
would be more than made up for by fans around the world.

------
not2b
They might as well give up that money now. The conditions on keeping it will
only become more draconian with time.

------
majia
What if Moray says something to support Palestine freedom and human rights?
Would NBA support Moray or Israel?

------
lacker
Soon you will get kicked out of an NBA game if you wear a shirt that says
“Free Hong Kong”.

------
on_and_off
Hey, free speech is also at risk but who cares when there is money involved ?

------
ausjke
money or free-speech, which one will you pick if it's you?

------
tonyaiken
Why there are so many political news on HN?

------
mocha_nate
Streisand effect potential for the US?

------
m0zg
This must be especially painful for Kerr who's known for his unhinged,
incessant railing against Trump, and who is now quite willingly licking the
boots of Xi Jinping, the real, actual dictator. Ready and willing to be woke,
but only as long as it's good for business. When there's money at stake,
though, murderous dictatorships are totally fine, and nothing to rail against.

------
kvrk2000s
"Band in China"

------
tomohawk
NBA also invested in a training camp in Xinjiang.

[https://nbaacademy.nba.com/location/xinjiang/](https://nbaacademy.nba.com/location/xinjiang/)

Meanwhile, millions of Uyghurs are being imprisoned nearby in concentration
camps.

------
ashelmire
I find it interesting that there isn't a Boycott / Divest / Sanctions movement
for China, despite the human rights abuses they've always committed, in
addition to more recently holding people in concentration camps. Surely their
offenses are far more egregious than Israel's? Where's the movement for Hong
Kong, for the Uighur? Does anyone know of such an effort?

~~~
bilbo0s
Well, what would we do though? I mean, start boycotting China, Saudi Arabia,
Vietnam, Rwanda, etc, etc etc.

I mean, I guess I should ask, in your view, where would that stop? Boycott
every nation in the world with human rights violations?

~~~
thelittleone
You could do that, or just boycott the one(s) you feel strongly about. Any
action is better than inaction.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _just boycott the one(s) you feel strongly about._

That's the rub.

That's the same thing as saying you don't necessarily mind doing business with
human rights abusers, as long as you don't feel too strongly about the people
being abused.

~~~
ashelmire
I don't think that's true. It's saying that you're going to make as many
changes as you reasonably can in your life. Perfect is the enemy of good. (And
only a sith deals in absolutes!)

------
whitebread
Can we relax with the self-made, altruistic view of billionaires? Self-made is
a myth, and an NBA owner just released a book titled "Shut Up and Listen."
Money talks, and it seems pretty clear that all of the moves previously made
were actually for profits, not social causes.

~~~
sorenn111
How is self-made a myth? Not saying all billionaires should be envied,
praised, etc. I'm sure many are huge manipulative asshole. But many also came
from very modest to virtually no means, how is that a myth?

~~~
uoaei
"Self-made" is almost always a misnomer because there's a point _very_ early
in the process of accruing wealth where you use it to bootstrap its own
operations, i.e., you start paying other people for their output to collect a
net profit. At that point, "self-made" no longer applies because now other
people are involved. At what point that transition happens determines how
"self-made" they are, but no one is ever 100% that, and if we go by
"percentage of current wealth needed to bootstrap" it's certainly well below
1%.

The global nature of today's economy, the complexity of navigating commerce
and industry, and the sheer magnitude of output required to be profitable,
makes it hard to do anything all by yourself. If we consider each person their
own island with cash in- and outflow, then everyone is self-made. If we
consider the global network of money changing hands, no one is self-made.

~~~
tooop
Self made means that you didn't inherit your money, win it in lottery or
somebody just gave it you. Self-made doesn't stop applying when other people
are involved, that is just absurd.

~~~
johnchristopher
English isn't my first language but self-made seems to me to be about the self
as in opposition to others.

And I have always understood the word to be used in that sense.

See the Collins definition (emphasis mine):

Self-made is used to describe people who have become successful and rich
through their own efforts, _especially if they started life without money,
education, or high social status_.

[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/self-
ma...](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/self-made)

~~~
tooop
Giving orders to others are your actions/efforts/decisions so it entirely
suits the definition.

~~~
johnchristopher
"I ask my mom and dad to connect me to their old money friends to get some low
rate loans to bootstrap my business. I am self made because _I_ asked my mom
and dad for the connection. And I also ask them to co-sign the lease for my
office."

HN Argumentum_ad_dictionarium at its finest. It's getting tiring.

------
5trokerac3
Not all costs are monetary. The long term ramifications of our businesses cow-
towing to mass-murdering authoritarians is far greater than potential profits.

~~~
smogcutter
Appropriately enough, the term you’re looking for is kowtowing (not towing
cows), a Chinese term for a deep bow of respect.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> a Chinese term for a deep bow of respect

Not so much a "deep bow" as "prostration on the ground".

~~~
yorwba
Literally, hitting (叩/kòu) one's head (头/tóu).

------
throwaway122378
No one giving Trump a little credit for pro actively working on putting an end
to Chinese theft?

------
resters
I can't believe the way that Trump's anti-China rhetoric is so eagerly
supported by so many people. China is just being China, what has changed is
that the Trump administration is trying to raise the stakes on its trade war.

------
ulkram
Just realize that you are most likely using Phones/Computers made in China to
call out the NBA.

------
kevin_b_er
Deryl Morey has learned the power Chinese Communist Interests have over his
human rights. China has instilled fear in the NBA that they must kowtow or
suffer monetarily. None of them are allowed to question the crimes against
humanity the CPC commits on its own people.

The NBA has a choice between human rights and money. Of course they chose
money. US culture has been designed around money and greed so long it has
forgotten principals it was supposedly founded on. Sure we fought a civil war
over human rights vs greed, but that was a long time ago. After right-wing
interests outsourced all the production and jobs for money in the past few
decades, Steve Jobs was right: Those jobs aren't coming back.

------
PavlovsCat
I know what "4 billion at risk" _means_ , but I still can't _help_ but be
reminded of this:

> _This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the
> people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions
> were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned
> with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on
> the whole it wasn 't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy._

\-- Douglas Adams

------
asdfgfdsa1
For all you kids, do you know what happens in Hongkong? Don't just use
"protest", check some video from the other side. Look for Molotov cocktails,
punching innocent people, burning stores, ruining public services, threaten
policeman's families, does any of these seem OK for you all? If you don't see
those stuff, the most easy one is searching for police shooting, how did that
shoot happen? What happened right after the shoot? Yes, Molotov cocktail!
Those riots are ruining other peoples life.

free speech, but don't build it another people's feelings, think about the
Clipper's, if NBA don't do it, someone will do it. There's more on basketball
than NBA.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
Well I have to give it to that old stopped clock Barry Goldwater who in one of
his two correct moments said "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice".

Oh except for that punching innocent people thing, which is bad. I like how
you snuck that one in there.

------
m_eiman
Good, there shouldn’t be money in sports.

~~~
behringer
Why would anybody play sports then?

~~~
jakeva
Not that I agree with the original, but that's a bit like asking why would
anybody play music or make art (activities that rarely involve money)? Because
they enjoy it.

~~~
munk-a
Though the parent is accurate that in our western society doing a thing
because you enjoy it is punished, both monetarily and socially, because you're
not efficiently using your time to make someone else some money.

~~~
derision
That couldn't be further from the truth

