LeBron James has become the first NBA player to author a piece in China's state-run People's Daily newspaper, an unusual move suggesting the top-flight North American basketball league's years-long row with Beijing could be coming to an end.
The NBA enjoyed decades of fast growth in China, where some 300 million play the game, ballooning into a business said to be worth more than $4 billion. The league was one of the most popular U.S. cultural exports to the country until 2019 when Daryl Morey, then general manager of the Houston Rockets, sent a tweet in support of anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.
The fallout was swift and brutal. China's state broadcaster CCTV stopped showing NBA games for 28 months, local sponsors cut ties, and Rockets merchandise vanished from store shelves. NBA commissioner Adam Silver revealed in 2022 that financial losses amounted to "hundreds of millions" of dollars.
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