NBA to host pre-season games in Macau from 2025
Deal marks NBA's return to China after 2019 debate
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Macau gambling establishments intending to improve non-gaming revenue
(Rewrites to add context that deal marks NBA's go back to China)
By Farah Master
HONG KONG, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The National Basketball Association (NBA) has actually signed a multiyear deal to play pre-season games in Macau from 2025, marking the league's return to the Chinese market after a years-long lack that followed debate over the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
Local media quoted NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum as saying the NBA would host 2 pre-season games annually for the next five years at casino operator Sands China's Venetian arena in Macau, an unique administrative region of China. The very first games, arranged for October of next year, will pit the Brooklyn Nets versus the Phoenix Suns.
A source acquainted with the matter confirmed the local media reports of the deal. The NBA did not instantly respond to a demand for remark.
Although China has actually just recently hosted NBA legends celebrity games, including one scheduled for Saturday at the Venetian home, the pre-season offer will mark a return of routinely arranged to China.
The NBA's lack followed a firestorm of controversy around comments five years earlier by the Houston Rockets' then-General Manager Daryl Morey, who posted a message on social networks in assistance of anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong.
Beijing suspended the broadcast of NBA games following that incident, prompting corporate sponsors to leave and the league to suffer what it described at the time as dramatic financial repercussions. Pre-season NBA games in China were also scrapped.
In February, Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball group and chairman of Chinese tech business Alibaba, stated the occurrence was water under the bridge and that the NBA would like to bring video games back to China and Macau.
Macau is the only location in China where people are able to lawfully gamble in gambling establishments.
Its government and Beijing have been advising the six licensed casinos - Wynn Macau, Sands China, SJM Holdings, Galaxy Entertainment, Melco and MGM China - to increase their percentage of revenue from non-gaming.
Macau's economy is greatly reliant on the casino market, which contributes around 80% of regional tax income.
Last year, Macau's government presented its first plan centred on a method where tourist and leisure are the primary pillars, supported by emerging industries such as conventional Chinese medication, health, monetary services and technology, along with conventions, exhibits, trade, culture and sports.
It intends for non-gaming industries to represent around 60% of Macau's GDP by 2028 versus 50% pre-pandemic in 2019.
(Reporting by Farah Master; Additional reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Nicholas Yong and Edmund Klamann)
