He’s going to be pilloried for it, but the man is right: Golden State Warriors co-owner Chamath Palihapitiya on Jan. 15 showed the true face of the revenue-obsessed NBA when he declared that no one cares about the Uighurs in regard to the league’s business love affair with China.
“Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uighurs, OK? You bring it up because you really care, and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care. I’m just telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line,” Palihapitiya told the stunned host of his All-In podcast. He was referring to the brutally repressed ethnic minority being used for slave labor by the Chinese communists. And no matter how ugly that truth may be, the honesty alone should be appreciated.
League of Dishonor
Daryl Morey (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
For years, China has been a moral Achilles’ heel for the cash-flush professional basketball league. The situation rose to a grotesque level in October 2019 when then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey had the temerity to tweet out his support for Hong Kong freedom protesters. The league repulsed millions of Americans by immediately scrambling to soothe Chinese anger. “We recognize that the views expressed by [Morey] have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable,” read an official NBA press release. China was not immediately appeased and promptly stopped broadcasting NBA games, a severe blow for the multinational behemoth that the association has become.
Nevertheless, it persisted.
“A little over a year after an NBA executive’s tweet drew the ire of China’s communist government, the nation’s state-run network announced it will broadcast Friday’s Game 5 of the NBA Finals,” The New York Daily News reported in October 2020 as the league concluded its coronavirus-affected season.
“According to a statement from [communist state-owned broadcaster] CCTV, the NBA recovered China’s business by sending nice messages and donating to the nation’s COVID-19 battle,” the paper stated. “The NBA donated more than $1 million and medical equipment to China, ESPN reported.”
“During the recent Chinese National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, the NBA sent their well wishes to fans in China,” the CCTV statement declared. “We also took note of the league has been continuously delivering goodwill [to China], particularly making positive contributions to Chinese people’s fight against COVID-19 pandemic.”
This is indeed the “very hard, ugly truth” behind the NBA’s public relations dance around the issue. If it comes to losing a market of 1.4 billion people – a great many of whom are avid basketball fans – or refusing to work with slave laborers, well, that is a well-publicized choice that was made long ago. Yet amid the richly deserved condemnation now raining down on Palihapitiya, there remains a question worth pondering: Given that the NBA is still riding high with U.S. sports fans, do his words only apply the league itself?
Ball and Hoop Circuses Go On
Here is another harsh truth revealed by a clearly pro-NBA Yahoo Sportswriter. His words may not be popular, but it is difficult to deny the accuracy of the information or fail to reach the sad conclusion that millions of Americans don’t care about human suffering either, as long as they are entertained.
In June 2021, Ben Rohrbach wrote:
“The viewership share for this year’s playoffs — the percentage of people with TVs in use that are watching the NBA — is at its highest since the league first began logging that data during the 2002-03 season. The NBA also happens to feature the youngest audience across major sports, one advertisers covet. Even as ratings declined during the pandemic, the NBA secured business partnerships with at least nine major brands, including Hotels.com, CarMax, Clorox, Michelob Ultra, Oculus from Facebook and Microsoft.”
Rohrbach cited a March 2021 CNBC article that reflects just how much of a powerhouse brand the NBA – and major pro sports in general – remains, even if it does antagonize its fans with racial divisiveness or intimacy with communist tyrannies.
“After the National Football League celebrated its history-making 11-year contract worth more than $100 billion, attention shifted to the NBA’s deal, which runs through the 2024-25 season,” CNBC reported. “Early thinking within league circles suggests the NBA will seek a $75 billion rights package, up from its current $24 billion deal, which pays $2.6 billion per year.”
“[E]very time I say that I’m caring about the Uyghurs I’m really just lying if I don’t really care, so I’d rather not lie to you and tell you the truth. It’s not a priority for me,” Palihapitiya said.
He’ll be slammed for the venomous comments for a while, and the league will take a PR hit as well. But the orange balls will go on bouncing – and Americans will continue to attend games, tune in on TV, and buy merchandise in staggering numbers. That is a hard, ugly truth that will not change anytime soon.
~ Read more from Joe Schaeffer.
