NBA Returns to Chinese State TV After Enes Kanter Freedom Removed

China Central Television (CCTV) on Wednesday night aired the first National Basketball Association (NBA) game in 17 months, seemingly concluding a blackout that began soon after then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey shared an image supportive of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement. 

China’s state-run Global Times implied on Thursday that cutting Enes Kanter Freedom, an outspoken critic of China’s genocidal campaign against the Uyghur Muslims of occupied East Turkistan, helped get the NBA back into the good graces of the Communist tyranny.

The Global Times cited “industry insiders” who said the NBA will make a “full return” to Chinese airwaves, although “the number of games broadcast will not be as many as before, and no more outside guest commentators will be invited.”

There appear to have been some last-minute debates on the state-controlled CCTV before the game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Utah Jazz was aired:

In October 2020, CCTV-5, the state broadcaster’s sports channel, broadcast the last game of the 2019/20 NBA Finals. The broadcast stimulated speculations that it might lead to a full return of NBA games on CCTV. However, the NBA games have remained absent on CCTV since then. In March 2021, media reported that CCTV had decided to bring back NBA games and had finished related paperwork, which did not happen either.

Earlier on Tuesday, basketball fans in China were surprised to find a listing of an NBA regular season game on CCTV-5’s program list for Wednesday. The Clippers-Jazz game was later temporarily pulled from the program list, but ended up being broadcast live on air.

The Global Times suggested China’s genocidal leaders were well-pleased by an online feud between Clippers coach Tyronn Lue and Morey, who is now president of operations for the Philadelphia 76ers. 

The argument broke out after the Sixers beat the Clippers last Friday. After a few fiery online exchanges between the two, Lue said of Morey: “Should he really be tweeting anything right now? Last time he tweeted, he cost the NBA a billion dollars.”

The Global Times said Lue’s remarks were “worth noticing” in connection with the Clippers getting back on Chinese television. The article suggested the NBA has a shot at getting back onto the streaming services Tencent Sports and MIGU Video as well.

The New York Times (NYT) on Thursday quoted an NBA spokesman who said the league was not aware the Clippers-Jazz game would be broadcast in China until the day it aired.

Georgetown assistant professor of Chinese politics Kristen Looney told the NYT Beijing might have decided “enough time has passed that things have kind of blown over” after Morey’s Hong Kong post, especially since U.S.-China relations have grown fraught over the war in Ukraine.

“From a macro perspective, it could mean that China is trying to signal that it still wants to maintain good economic relations with the United States despite differences in opinion on the Russia-Ukraine crisis,” she said.

“It’s possible that China is fearful that its close relationship with Russia would have ripple effects on its economic relations with the United States and the rest of the Western world that is on the side of Ukraine,” Looney speculated.