The NBA had been hoping to boost its popularity in the lucrative China market this week with a pair of pre-season exhibition games, but those plans were thrown into disarray by a tweet from Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey backing the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
The NBA has built a lucrative Chinese fanbase in recent years thanks in part to the popularity of former Rockets centre Yao Ming. Crews at Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz arena, where the Nets and Lakers were to play, were seen Wednesday morning removing the logos of the NBA, Nets, Lakers, and corporate sponsors from lamp-posts and walls in the area.
Hong Kong has endured nearly four months of protests that were ignited by a now-scrapped plan to allow extraditions of criminal suspects to the mainland.
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