There's a story in today's Chronicle about the Seattle Mariners which explains how they are able to compete despite having a relatively small market club: "With three Japanese players -- including the enormously popular Suzuki, who was a superstar in Japan for nine years -- all the Mariners' home games and some of their road games are televised in Japan. The Mariners can outdraw top network shows. The result: a $20 million local television deal and a $10 million local radio deal, both huge even by large-market standards." Now, I know that Yao Ming isn't as popular in China as Suzuki is in Japan, but China has a much, much larger population than Japan. Out of a billion Chinese, wouldn't Yao (if he's successful) be able to generate at least 5 million loyal viewers for Rocket games? And with such an additional audience, the Rockets could generate enough advertising revenue to match the Knicks, the Blazers, and the Mavericks dollar for dollar, allowing them to bust the luxury tax to make any deal necessary to win.
I am not sure what restrictions the NBA places on teams showing games overseas. For all we know, the TV revenue Ming creates from China could ALL go to the NBA.
They show NBA games overseas (China, Hong Kong, etc...), but they are old games. Not too old, one or two weeks old, and they only show the really good teams (Lakers, Kings, etc....), but I'm sure they will have tons of footage of Ming and the Rocks.
