Apr 15, 2009
…maybe they can get Paula Abdul and Kareem Abdul-Jabar to co-host?
In the NBA’s never ending quest to expand its league and enhance its brand on a global level, the NBA has partnered with the China Mengniu Dairy Co. and Shandong Satellite TV, to create the NBA’s first reality show, called ‘Mengniu NBA Basketball Disciple’ (because if nothing else, subtle stereo-types involving Asians and martial arts disciplines always work!). More info from Ad Age,
The show will follow a three-month basketball competition starting with public tryouts in 64 cities in China. The players will compete in a variety of skills competitions and be awarded points based on performance in four rounds.
Following a final all-star game in the last round, the player with the most cumulative points will be crowned the most valuable player of the competition and win an all-expenses-paid trip to the U.S. for a tryout with a team from the NBA’s minor league.
Former NBA players such as Darryl Dawkins, who played with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, scouts and a coach will appear throughout the series to run competitions, evaluate players, award points and determine which competitors advance to the next round. An NBA mascot and dance team will also be on-site to provide entertainment for NBA fans.
Basketball in China...yes, I like it.
This may just be “Stern-ian” logic at its finest. One of the hurdles facing Stern with any attempts to expand the NBA league, or to create sub-leagues overseas, is ensuring a basketball economy/marketplace exists in the areas he is seeking expansion. China already has a large NBA marketplace (Thanks Yao Ming!), but why not try to bolster that marketplace before bringing an NBA team there? Or, better point, why not put this sort of TV vehicle in a spot where you know it will thrive, so that you can use it as selling point in venues that may not be as receptive to the NBA product (i.e. countries in Europe). This reality show kills both of those birds with one stone, because if nothing else…people love to follow reality shows with a winner at the end (see any season of American Idol), and the NBA will obviously have its brand plastered all over the show, so they get the brand enhancement and recognition they crave at the same time.
Even if that logic inexplicably fails, and I would be surprised if it would, the show will also help to increase the NBA’s foreign fan base (or bolster it). The winner gets a shot with a D-League team? Does anyone else think that a Chinese player who won an American Idol-type competition who now plays on a D-League squad would maybe garner some attention for the D-League? And with the potentially large number of Chinese people who would follow a Chinese player, could we potentially see the NBA contracting with ESPN or some provider to show D-League games on their network? Sure, Americans would probably not be that interested, but if you had a few million Chinese people that would definitely tune in to see that one winner of the show…how could the networks pass that up? The NBA has the ability to create what is possibly a lucrative revenue stream in an area where I’m assuming little revenue is currently being generated…all by expanding their audience on a global scale.
That all being said, how can you argue that sports shouldn’t go global? And even if you did argue that, how would your argument not fall on deaf ears? I don’t know if David Stern is going to be able to hear you while he’s diving into his Scrooge McDuck money-swimming pool.
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