ESPN analysis: NBA owners, mum on troubled China relationship, have more than $10 billion invested there

On the eve of the current NBA playoffs, the league's games returned to state-run TV in China after a nearly three-year ban. It was a quiet return, with nary a word from New York or Beijing trumpeting the apparent end of a bitter conflict.

NBA owners had remained largely silent throughout the ban, even as the league worked behind the scenes to repair a ruptured relationship that had cost hundreds of millions of dollars and laid bare the complexities of doing business with an authoritarian regime.

The owners had reason to stay quiet: In addition to the money their teams derive from the NBA's $5 billion business in China, many have significant personal stakes there through their other businesses.

ESPN examined the investments of 40 principal owners and found that they collectively have more than $10 billion tied up in China — including one owner whose company has a joint venture with an entity sanctioned by the U.S. government.

The owners' myriad ties to the world's second-largest economy leave their businesses vulnerable if they get on the wrong side of the Chinese government or the public there, according to the analysis.

Since a tweet from then-Rockets general manager Daryl Morey in support of Hong Kong protesters ignited the NBA-China conflict in October 2019, the NBA's relationship with a country widely criticized for alleged human rights abuses has come under scrutiny. Last month, ESPN reported the many ways Nets owner Joe Tsai, the co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, personified the compromises embedded in the NBA-China relationship.

«This is a significant issue and problem that American companies have,» said Robert Kuhn, a longtime adviser to Chinese political leaders and multinational corporations