Lots of folks are unhappy at the way the NBA has knuckled under to the Chicoms, basically apologizing for being alive. I agree it isn’t a good look for a supposedly “woke” group most of whom are minority guys.
What I find interesting is the extent to which the Chinese have learned from D. J. Trump’s playbook. Trump is successfully muscling China on trade because the U.S. is China’s biggest customer, the one they cannot do without.
The Chinese looked at the $$ they were spending on NBA licensed merchandise and game feeds and said to themselves, that will enable us to coerce the NBA the way the U.S. is muscling us. We Chinese are a customer the NBA can’t live without. It turns out they are right, and the NBA is eating crow.
Economists talk a lot about monopolies, meaning one or a few vendors having too much power over consumers, a problem for those customers. Less is said about a vendor having one or a few customers, that can be an equally big problem for the vendor, a condition called “monopsony.”
If you don’t believe it, ask a defense contractor or a firm that makes parts for new cars. China has the too-few-customers problem with respect to the U.S. on trade; the NBA has that same problem with respect to China when it comes to fan spending.
Feel free to mutter something about karma-in-action.
