beyondbrics

Can a 23-year old Taiwanese-American help the NBA score more points in China?

That’s the question that officials at the National Basketball Association are surely asking after Jeremy Lin, a Harvard grad with an economics degree, came off the bench last week to lead the New York Knicks to five explosive back-to-back wins.

His performance - including this electrifying 38-point game against the LA Lakers on Friday – and his underdog story: a little-used backup that was cut by two other teams – has captured the public’s imagination.

For the NBA, which is working hard to sustain its momentum in China – its biggest overseas market – following the injuries and the subsequent retirement of Yao Ming, the spread of “Lin-sanity” (as the Lin fan-frenzy is known) could not be better timed.

Already Asian television stations have announced plans to add more Knicks games to their February schedules, while CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, has adjusted its NBA schedule to show more Knicks games.

Lin has also become front page news in China and Taiwan, while Lin Shuhao (Lin’s Chinese name) has become the most searched term on Baidu.com, China’s top search engine.

“Lin Shuhao thank you!” gushed one fan on Sino Weibo, a popular microblog in China. “I have once again found a reason to be infatuated with the NBA after Yao Ming retired, and it’s because of you.”

But can Lin replace Yao?

“It’s too early to say,” David Shoemaker, head of NBA China told beyondbrics. “Yao is Yao and is a phenomenon unto himself with a career that spanned 10 years. Jeremy has had a string of six great games, but he has a long way to go before we can make that comparison.”

Shoemaker was at pains to play down the potential uplift Lin could give to the NBA’s business in China. Despite Yao’s retirement and a lengthy report published recently about the league’s missteps in China, Shoemaker said the league is doing better than ever.

Revenues and profits from China are “at record high”, Shoemaker said. Even before Lin’s burst, viewerships in China are up 39 per cent compared to last season, according to the NBA.

An estimated $430m, or 10 per cent of the NBA’s revenues, now come from its international operations. While the league has recently made a push into other countries, such as India and the Middle East, China – where some 300m people (or roughly the population of the US) play basketball - remains its most important overseas market.

So the potential marketing appeal of Lin in China and Asia, which is starving for a new hero to follow, should not be underestimated — especially given the NBA’s recent financial woes, which some observers speculate might be linked to its overseas expansion.

This from ESPN’s Henry Abbott:

February 2010 was one of the first times Stern explained why NBA players would need to accept a smaller share of revenues. After talking about flat ticket prices, he volunteered another reason: the league’s spending overseas. At that time, the only bold new play was China.

“Internationally, those initial dollars are very costly to come by,” he explained. “We are out there; when you open an office and you ship people there and you do the investment spending; we have always investment spent and we are continuing to do that. But it’s beginning to … this economic environment, we are feeling it a little bit more. We have had cutbacks at the league, we have had cutbacks at the teams and reductions of expenses and the like.”

Of course, as Shoemaker pointed out, the whole thing could fizzle out as quickly as it started, should Lin prove to be a flash in the pan. But for the time being, Lin mania is already being felt in the stock market.

Shares in Madison Square Garden, owner of the Knicks, are up 10 per cent over the past week to an all time high of $32.32.

Related reading:
How rich is Yao Ming?, beyondbrics
Li Na, the next Yao Ming?, beyondbrics
NBA scores as basketball’s appeal abroad grows, FT
Basketball aims for slam dunk in India, FT
Yao Ming’s retirement could hurt NBA in China, ESPN