Power in the Social Network between the NBA and China
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/10/07/nba-china-tweet-daryl-morey/
Earlier this month, Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, sent out a tweet voicing his support for the protests in Hong Kong. This single tweet set off a chain reaction of responses varying from strong support in Morey exercising his freedom of speech to calls for him to be fired from some in China. These responses put a spotlight on the intricate social networks that existed between China and the NBA as well as between the NBA teams and the players on those teams. In response to Morey’s tweet, many Chinese businesses, including Tencent, decide to terminate previously negotiated deals and other companies canceled deals with individual players, costing individuals like Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma potentially millions of dollars.
This interaction is a perfect display of power in social networks. Since Tencent is one of the largest internet services and media companies in China, they have a lot of power in terms of negotiating a deal with the NBA since they can, almost solely, offer the Chinese market and the billions of dollars in revenue that come with it. However, the NBA also has a virtual monopoly on its product so the power before Morey’s tweet was much more balanced. Now that China is mad at Morey, and by extension the Rockets and the NBA, the NBA has lost bargaining power in its network. However, it is interesting to see how individuals have responded as well to the issue. Lakers forward Lebron James condemned Morey’s statement and appeared to side with China in what many people saw as a financially motivated move. Also, Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai, co-founder of Chinese e-commerce goliath Alibaba, took a similar stance to NBA commissioner Adam Silver in that they both seemed willing to throw Morey under the bus to try and stop the bleeding in terms of the relationship with China. The dynamism of this social network by a single social media post goes to show just how prone to disruption social networks can be.