China is already
the N.B.A.'s largest market outside the United States, and it estimates that 300 million Chinese play basketball--a number equal to the entire population of the U.S. Nearly one-third of the traffic
to NBA.com comes to the Mandarin Chinese side of the site. Branded N.B.A. merchandise is now sold through more than 50,000 outlets there.
The N.B.A.'s challenge has been to win government agencies' approval for arena construction and to persuade television stations owned by local and provincial governments to join national broadcasters that already carry N.B.A. games. David Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner, says that these challenges helped make Chen, who has experience navigating the Chinese bureaucracy, the best contender for heading the operation.
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