Not sure if anyone here follows US Sports (I'm a big follower of the NHL and NBA) but even if you don't you surely can't have missed the news this month regarding China and NBA, Le Bron James in particular making the headlines after attempting (and mostly failing) to walk back his apparent support for the Chinese governments actions in Hong Kong.
For those who aren't aware - the Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey recently published a post on twitter criticising the actions of the Chinese government in Hong Kong - which turned into a media storm with China pulling their sponsorship and televising of the NBA in the country as a result. The NBA clearly want Chinese sponsorship and the money that China has to offer, and so Morey removed the tweet and apologised; with the Chinese government asking for "mutual respect". It's sad to see how quickly the NBA has been willing to sell its soul over this (especially a role model like Le Bron James), and its affecting other industries too, with Apple banning pro democracy singers from selling on the Apple Music store to appease China as well. This will surely have ramifications for the music industry, film and television (with South Park getting banned this week for being critical of China's human rights record and comparing Xi Jingping to Winnie the Pooh - a character already banned in China for this having previously been done.
Given how the NBA have taken the approach to toe the Chinese line and are trying to repair that customer relationship by not allowing, or at least actively discouraging NBA officials from discussing the issues on their personal social media accounts, is geo-politics going to be something we see playing a bigger role in Football and sport in general? As China ramps up its investment in sports and broadcasting abroad are we going to see changes in the way matches are recorded? Are we going to see relatively average Chinese players in the Premier League simply to gain access to the market and appease the financial decision makers, with financial threats towards clubs who drop these players? Will sponsors have to be vetted by foreign powers, players social media accounts tracked and monitored? Or do we take affirmative action now and make it clear that as an industry we are not going to accept investment from authoritarians? It certainly seems that its an all or nothing relationship so surely you are either with them or against them. My guess is that the Premier League and football league will jump at virtually any money it can get.
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