NBA to Return to China with Multiyear Deal in Macau

Grant Chum, president and CEO of Sands China, speaks during a press conference to announce NBA pre-season games coming to China in 2025, at the Londoner Hotel in Macau on December 6, 2024. (Photo by Eduardo Leal / AFP)

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has 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 absence that followed controversy over the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
Local media quoted NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum as saying the NBA would host two pre-season games annually for the next five years at casino operator Sands China's Venetian arena in Macau, a special administrative region of China. The first games, scheduled for October of next year, will pit the Brooklyn Nets against the Phoenix Suns, Reuters reported.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed the local media reports of the deal. The NBA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Although China has recently hosted NBA legends celebrity games, including one scheduled for Saturday at the Venetian property, the pre-season deal will mark a return of regularly scheduled NBA play to China.
The NBA's absence followed a firestorm of controversy around comments five years ago by the Houston Rockets' then-General Manager Daryl Morey, who posted a message on social media in support of anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
Beijing suspended the broadcast of NBA games following that incident, prompting corporate sponsors to flee and the league to suffer what it described at the time as dramatic financial consequences. Pre-season NBA games in China were also scrapped.
In February, Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team and chairman of Chinese tech company Alibaba, said the incident was water under the bridge and that the NBA would love to bring games back to China and Macau.