First! Edit: Interesting tidbit about chinese buyers for the club. For some reason, that feels right. Especially if Yao is involved. I'd be a little concerned that Chinese owners might press the coach to treat Qi in ways that might not benefit him long term. Dude has a promising future if he's brought up the right way. I don't know if this thread will ever blow up, but it should. Tad Brown is the person with the most knowledge about the potential new ownership. Weird that Tad didn't bring up coach of the year, Mike D'Antoni when talking about what the team has. Did Tad really say basketball rivals the popularity of soccer around the world? Bwhahahahahaha... that will NEVER happen.
Basketball is actually played in leagues all over the world. It's the only "American Sport" that can claim that really. Baseball has pockets but not like basketball. When your audience includes half a billion Chinese its say it helps.
Basketball doesn't rival soccer. It's a no contest. Sure, it's probably the second or third most popular sport, but the difference in popularity is huge. The last world cup had 3.9 billion viewers. Argentina vs Germany alone had 700 million. Game 7 of the Cavs vs Warriors had under 45 million. That was for the last 10 minutes only though. Before that is was 33 million. The differences are astronomically different. The World Cup has stopped wars. Basketball has never done anything like that. You can't call something a rival when it's 21 times more popular. I mean, they don't even have to run commercials to make money during the game. Think about this. Manchester United is sponsored by Chevrolet. Chevy paid 560 million dollars to put their logo on the chest of Manchester United players. The most chevys ever sold in a year in England is 18,660 vehicles. That works out to about 30,000 dollars per Chevy sold. Why would they do something so stupid? Because United can easily get 5 million viewers for any given game and they play about 50 times a season. Hell, Real Madrid vs Juventus in the Champions League Final had about 400 million viewers. Soccer's not rivaled by any sport in this world.
One of the advantage for soccer is you don't need to be 6'9 to play it, it's more approachable to common people. Soccer is not rivaled, that's why basketball need to expand internationally to grow its appeal. A strong foothold in China would be a fantastic start.
England, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, South Africa, Ireland, and Sri Lanka all have big followings. Not just India. I'm guessing you've never left this country? 1.5 billion viewers for one event is nothing to brush off. Basketball doesn't get anywhere near that. https://www.rapidtvnews.com/2015070...015-draws-1-5bn-tv-viewers.html#axzz4nY3S5eFy
I think in China it is like this, educated guess Ping Pong (Table tennis) Soccer Basketball (2nd place, trailing not far behind) because the President is an avid soccer fan Badminton, Go Chess, Tennis..... You see alot of kids preferring basketball to soccer but as the President has emphasized soccer in schools....I can see Soccer overtaking Basketball again. You dun need to be above 6'3 to love basketball, the probability of making it to semi pro level or beyond is almost 0 for lots of guys anyway. It is mostly on a grassroots level basis.
I don't think anyone implies that Basketball is more watched than Cricket. What the argument is. That basketball is the fastest growing sport and will one day out pace other sports. even if your mind can't wrap around this area. It will at some point. Sports like cricket and baseball are long and take a lot of time to watch. I could literally go to bed at 12 am and wake up at 6 am and the cricket match would still be on. Younger generation isn't into that. They want fast, action filled 2 hour game. So they can go back to other things
Basketball would be the runner up to soccer. I think that basketball has star players known world wide more than cricket or baseball. However its much more cheap and accesible to play soccer anywhere around the world growing up. Thats probably the reason soccer will always be on top.
I can't remember if they've ever qualified for a world cup but I don't think they have. So many people that if soccer was really high up on the popularity totem pole then they should be utterly embarrassed how **** they are at it.
if OP would just edit the thread title and add something like "DMo" to it, I guarantee this thread would blow up. So something like "Tad Brown on DMo and The Bloomberg business of sports" would probably do it
With all the influence in FIFA I think they will be able to host a World Cup, no problem qualifying for one. Matter of time. The shitty thing is parents in the past have not been able to send enough kids to soccer scholes. The talent pool wasn't that great. But there is potential with the right policies.
