BEIJING - The
National Basketball Association (NBA) will open
its first overseas store in Beijing in a shopping
center on Wangfujing Street, according to sources
close to the decision.
Heidi Ueberroth,
president of international business operations
with the NBA, said the US-based basketball
franchise would open its first overseas store in
either Beijing or Shanghai as China becomes the
biggest market in its fast-growing international
business.
Sources, however, said the
location is preferred to be on
Wangfujing, Beijing's
equivalent of New York's Fifth Avenue.
The
league, which said it wants to increase its
connection with Chinese fans, believes stores and
restaurants are "an interesting new opportunity".
Ueberroth said the NBA's international
operations contribute only 10% of total revenue,
but it's the fastest-growing part of the business,
with an annual increase of 30%.
More than
300 million people in China play basketball,
according to official statistics. The NBA is the
most popular sports league in China, according to
a survey by the European research company TNS. It
found that 83% of males between 15 and 61 years
old are interested in the game, up from 75% last
year.
The NBA's revenue in the 2005 fiscal
year ending August was US$3.2 billion and overall
growth was 6.7%, according to financial website
Hoover's Online. China is the NBA's largest
market, with an annual growth rate of 50% in
recent years.
The US sports league, which
started to cooperate with the national broadcaster
China Central Television (CCTV) in 1987, signed 14
new broadcasters this year to expand the coverage
of games. Most of these broadcasters are in
western or inland regions, such as Tibet and
Xinjiang, or counties such as Jinshan in Shanghai.
Currently, as many as 51 TV and radio
broadcasters in China show 10 NBA games a week.
The NBA All Stars game this year had 232 million
Chinese viewers, 30% more than last year.
Like many multinational firms, the NBA
hopes to penetrate beyond China's larger cities
into the whole of the country. Besides retailing,
the NBA is looking to technology to spread its
product. Ueberroth said that it's in talks with
China Mobile to bring mobile content to the
world's largest telecom operator's 290 million
subscribers, such as game news, scores, and video
clips.
China's booming Internet sector is
another place for growth. Last year, the NBA
signed an agreement with the Chinese firm Nusports
to broadcast 42 games live on the Internet.
