Will the Chinese fans still be loyal to the Rockets if we trade Lin?

I'm not sure if Lin was too much of a draw for the mainland Chinese population. They were amused and mildly supportive of his success, but it was nothing like what Yao had.

 

Lin is extremely popular in China and Taiwan. I've witnessed it, they'll go where he goes. He even has a NY following in Chinatown.

 

I can relate to Hakeem and he's from Africa. The fact he looks similar to me helps in a connection being African American. People view us simply as black men. Of course I'm only 5'7" but you get the point.

 

will we lose argentina fans after delfino left? white fans? black fans? it doesn't matter. stop bringing race into this

 

i don't care about bandwagon fans.

 

What roslolian mentioned is correct and has been said by other posters and myself a few times. Lin's impact in China is more marginal than people believe... a cultural + marketing phenomenon.

1. A huge amount of Chinese fans (in China) are loyal to the Rockets due to the Yao era and even somewhat back to the Hakeem era. A lot of them still follow McGrady. It wouldn't matter if Lin was on the roster. This interest is on the decline.

2. Chinese are exposed to the NBA through a handful of players. Marketing and game broadcasts in China focus heavily around only a handful of top player personalities (Kobe, Lebron, Rose, etc.) and not focused on teams or a larger spectrum of players like in the US. Lin is not one of them.

3. He's not mainland Chinese; he's an ABC. That is a big difference in a lot of the populace's eyes. ABCs are often mentioned with a negative connotation in China. This is an added hurdle to market him in China compared to a Yao or Yi JianLian. It'd be different if he was a guy born in China who then moved over to the US.

In summary, the Lin fan base and impact in China is overstated. It's a mistake to look at cases of Chinese outside of China and generalize that that is what is happening in China. There are major cultural differences. The density of his fan base remains to be in the US and other parts of Asia.

 

So Kobe s Chinese? All this time I thought he's Japanese!

 

Some would.

There is a ethnocentric "historical" bias on these boards that didn't see the memo on the growth of the Chinese Basketball League and how the NBA had lost its appeal over the years since Yao retired.

You could almost guarantee a majority leaving though.

You would have a few diehards but most would go back to watching the Chinese League and some would follow Jeremy Lin. Chinese advertisers would withdraw as quickly as they left NYK.

Its about eyeballs and reaching their target markets. No holdovers holding mugs of cider, reminiscing about the past with old friends.

 

Italian!

 

lol

I'm Korean and a huge Lin fan, but that never happened. There are always these stupid rumors that Korean people claim someone, whom vast majority of Korean people don't even know about, is Korean. I don't exactly know who spread those rumors(I can only suspect) but I can't recall one single rumor that was true.

 

If you could read the Lin's Chinese fan forum in mainland (baidu ba), you would know that the answer is a solid NO. They will follow Lin to wherever he goes. The thing is that lots of Yao fans stopped supporting Rockets after he retired, Jeremy Lin is the one who brought some of them back. Before Lin came to Rockets, Rockets were behind many teams in popularity in mainland China, rockets will be in the same situation if Lin leaves Rockets now, with Howard or not.

 

Dwight already has connections to Chinese fans through Adidas.

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LMAO!!!

 

fck, misvoted. Meant to poll yes.

 

Believe it or not, many Chinese Rocket fans were pissed off when we signed Lin. lol

 

I'm an Australian-Chinese Rockets fan, as much as I love Lin. I would still be loyal to the Rockets organization.

 

I have always thought that the Japanese had a beef with Kobe.

 

I'm an ABC - Australian, not American

Although I've been a huge NBA fan since the early 90's, I never truly rooted for any particular team. I have to admit that I started following the Rockets purely because of Yao Ming.

However, I made the successful transition from Yao fan to Rockets fan somewhere along the way and will now remain loyal to Houston regardless of how many other asians enter the league. I have to admit that as an asian it was exciting to get Linsanity on board but if he's dealt away, I'm not goin with him.

I reckon a lot of fans are probably in a similar situation to me; adopted Houston because of Yao/Lin but will convert to Rockets Red after becoming more familiar with the organisation and fan base.

 

I worked over in Seoul last year and found they really didn't care about basketball. They are more baseball fans.