October 14, 2007	Sunday	Shawwal 1, 1428

BEIJING, Oct 13: The NBA is America’s leading sports export to China, and it’s about to begin an unprecedented expansion in the world’s fastest growing major economy.

The lure of a country with 1.3 billion people, where 300 million play basketball which comes to the entire population of the United States, is too lucrative to resist.

“We believe the potential of a market with four times the population of the United States ultimately must be at least what the United States is,” said Adam Silver, the NBA’s deputy commissioner, who describes China’s growth potential as “exponential.”

The NBA has never undertaken such an expansion, so the exact outline of what’s about to unfold is unclear. But the direction is unmistakable.

Timothy Chen, one of China’s best known business executives, begins work on Monday as the chief executive officer of the company’s new Chinese subsidiary — NBA China.

Chen was Microsoft’s top man in China until he resigned last month. He’ll be charged with pulling together TV rights, sponsorships, new digital offerings and, perhaps, a new freestanding NBA-branded league in a country where NBA merchandise is already sold at 50,000 outlets.

The potential growth is unmistakable.

The NBA generated about $50 million in revenue last year from China, the league’s largest market outside the United States. That pales compared to overall NBA revenue of almost $4 billion. But the NBA’s 80-person staff in China is set to grow five times in the next several years and Silver suggested revenue will make at least comparable gains.

Ninety percent of the new subsidiary will be owned by the league. Two five-percent shares will be sold to Chinese investors and to a U.S. media company. Silver wouldn’t confirm it, but the American buyer is reported to be the Walt Disney Company, which owns ESPN and ABC.

David Stern, the NBA commissioner, Silver, Chen and Heidi Ueberroth, who directs the NBA’s international business, are set to be in China this week for three NBA preseason games in Shanghai and the former Portuguese territory of Macau.

“We’re going to be meeting with several potential Chinese investors in NBA China,” Silver said. He said the investment bank Goldman Sachs was working with the NBA and deals were likely to be closed in the next several weeks.

The key may be the 16-team Chinese Basketball Association. Begun 12 years ago, it was the proving ground for the Houston Rockets’ Yao Ming and China’s newest NBA player, Yi Jianlian, the Milwaukee Bucks’ 7-foot power forward.

“Both the CBA and we recognize that we can increase the caliber of the play and the quality of the presentation,” Silver said. “In order to do that, it’s going to require a much larger infrastructure as well as state-of-the-art arenas.”—AP