The motivation for the NBA to expand globally roots to making more revenues and expand the sport into new markets with the interest of growing their league. While looking at the countries that the NBA has targeted for expansion, you are able to build a profile for who the NBA is selecting in terms of markets. Starting with the bigger European countries with the likes of France, Spain, Germany and Italy, then to the Oceanic market of Australia, to the Asian markets of Japan and China, the NBA targets certain characteristics within the market. They tend to prefer first world countries that have a primary sport that is thriving. This is because it shows the NBA that the country can handle the expenses that come with running a basketball league …show more content…
Since “China was a relatively “free” country in regard to broadcasting” and “Many digital products were traditionally free (or very inexpensive) and conceived as public”, the NBA was forced to create a price for their content package that would both grow their brand and create profits. While I would not taken the approach of trying to create profits from the beginning, instead focusing on creating distribution channels and growing interest in their product before charging for it, the NBA created a TV package that gave China the ability to watch their product. They charged much less in China for their “NBA League Pass” then in the US. From personal experience, the League Pass is nice for the viewer in that it offers almost every game, but in the US you must pay for the entire season, which is pricy for the viewer. In China, the NBA broke it down into Yearly, Monthly and Daily, while charging different prices for each district. The lowest package deal for a daily pass in most districts was available for less than one US dollar. The monthly packages were sold, on average, for around six US dollars, while the Yearly went for around fifty US dollars, according to Exhibit 1. One major quote from the article sums up China’s sport industry perfectly, “China’s sports industry accounts for only 0.52 per cent of China’s GDP in 2008, while in …show more content…
What the NBA likes to do is host exhibition games in the market they wish to expand into, lets say Japan. The NBA continues to host games in this market in order to build up curiosity and interest in their product. Once the new market is interested, the NBA has their stars become their face, and promote them heavily. They do this by having star-studded matchups, and having those stars tour around the country, and do meet and greets. This makes them heroes and idols to the fans there. The final step is getting a player in the NBA from that country and make them into an idol for the fan base. For Japan it was Yuta Tabuse, for China it was Yao Ming, France it was Tony Parker, its goes on and on. This creates a sense of, “They made it, so can I” mentality in the fan base. The NBA did this same strategy in China, with the edition of making NBA League Pass cheaper for them to enjoy games. This strategy has done so-so in China because of a couple factors. The first is China enjoys mostly free broadcasting, which the NBA went against. If I were them, I would have made the content free, and worked on creating and promoting my brand in China instead of focusing on profits, but hey making money is all that matters, not creating something that has longevity. Also, the NBA has struggled to get a stud NBA player from China since Yao Ming, which has hurt them because the fan base in China has no one to connect to in