[the_watcher]

NOTE: I think this has been handled incredibly poorly by the NBA and that Morey should have doubled down on his tweet, not caved.

That said, the reason additional profits matter is that 51% of the revenue (not profits) go to the players, and the salary cap is tied directly to total revenue. This was collectively bargained and cannot be changed without a renegotiation. A lot of decisions have been made making assumptions about revenue that include revenue from China. On the player side, the total amount of money available to them is directly impacted by how much money is generated in China.

All that said, the NBA and the players should absolutely speak out and dare the CCP to delete the NBA. It's the most popular sport in the country and they've spent years cultivating the relationship. People will notice if it disappears.

[TallGuyShort]

Sorry, but "why does the NBA (a large corporation employing many people) need to make more money?" comes off as a far more reasonable question to me than "why do professional American basketball players need to make more money?"

[the_watcher]

Sorry, wasn't clear and was really making two points that are tangentially related:

1 - highlighting that total revenue generated directly impacts the amount of money available to players (as in there is a legal document outlining this)

2 - Ownership groups and the league as a whole have made many decisions based on an assumption of 49% of future revenues generated, so reductions in that future revenue stream are a lot riskier than "we just won't make as much profit." It's possible that for some teams, the reduction in revenue could actually force them to operate substantially in the red.

Once again, just want to be clear that I'm just pointing out the actual financial situation and that I still think the NBA should and could call China's bluff. It would likely sting in the short term, but China has invested so much in building up the NBA domestically that it will be really difficult to just delete it without any kind of backlash.

Long-term, I imagine the NBA is going to put more resources into the Indian market to reduce their reliance on a single overseas market.