Franklins over Freedom: Sports and China’s risky relationship

Written by Dylan Winn

It’s October 9th, 2019. The Washington Wizards are about to play the Guangzhou Loong-Lions, a team in the Chinese Basketball Association, in an exhibition preseason game. Outside, members of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation passed out signs and shirts that read “Free Hong Kong” in English and Chinese. Inside the game, directly after the Chinese national anthem, a protestor shouts “FREE HONG KONG!” and is escorted out of the arena. 

These demonstrations continue throughout the game. The game wasn’t attended by many fans, which made the game more about the protestors and less about the basketball being played. These protests are a result of a firestorm between the NBA and Rockets GM Daryl Morey, after Morey posted a tweet in support of democracy in Hong Kong, due to protests in the city after the Hong Kong government introduced the Fugitive Offenders Amendment Bill, which lead to concerns that Hong Kong residents and visitors would be exposed to the legal system of mainland China, which would undermine the many democratic legal systems and rights Hong Kong has. Protests were widespread and are ongoing to this day.

The NBA is one of the few sports leagues in the US that relies on Chinese viewership. The NBA is the most popular sports league in the country, and basketball is extremely popular as well, which means the NBA has a lot of money to gain from viewership, games, merch sales, and ticket sales. This means that the NBA essentially has to strip players and staff members from expressing opinions about the country, including rhetoric about pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

The only other leagues that go this far are under the ownership of Activision-Blizzard. They operate the Overwatch League and the Hearthstone Grandmasters esports tournaments. On October 6th, 2019, Hearthstone pro and Hong Kong native Ng Wai Chung, who goes by “Blitzchung”, made comments on the protests after a match, saying “Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times!”. The stream was cut shortly after, and Blizzard announced that he had been banned from the tournament and from other Grandmasters tournaments for a year. After major backlash, including letters from US congress representatives, Blizzard reduced the punishment to a six-month ban. Similarly, in a Hearthstone Collegiate Champs game on October 9th, members of the losing team American University held up a sign that read “Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz”, which landed them a six-month ban as well. 

The Overwatch League has four Chinese teams: the Shanghai Dragons, the Hangzhou Spark, the Chengdu Hunters, and the Guangzhou Charge. A Seoul Dynasty player, Jong-ryeol "Saebyeolbe" Park, made comments on a livestream about freedom of speech in China on April 14th, 2021, and all four Chinese-owned teams have announced a boycott from Saebyeolbe in all capacities. Activision-Blizzard has not commented on the situation yet.

This begs the question: Will the NBA and Activision Blizzard continue to shut down free speech in order to make money from China? Will other leagues follow suit? The situation is ongoing, so we’re still unsure about the future. Only time can tell, and that time may be limited.