The world’s premier
basketball league has spent decades cultivating the multibillion-dollar Chinese market, but the fallout from a single tweet has threatened to upset it all
For Lisa Delpy Neirotti, the surest sign of the National Basketball Association’s booming business in
China came during her morning commute.
It was two years ago, and Delpy Neirotti, a sports management professor at George
Washington University, was guest lecturing at
Beijing Sports University. Riding the subway on her way to campus, she noticed other passengers watching NBA contests live on their smartphones.