At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) spoke about the NBA's relationship with China.
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00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to each of you for being here.
00:05In Tennessee, we love our sports teams also.
00:09And Mr. Koenig, I want to come to you because I've, through the years,
00:15looked at the NBA's relationship with oppressive regimes around the globe.
00:21And, of course, you all have had quite a cozy relationship with the CCP.
00:26And we know how they censor.
00:31And going back to 2019 with Daryl Morey's tweet in support of the Hong Kong freedom fighters,
00:39and that resulted in the suspension of the NBA broadcast on their state-run media channels.
00:48And in recent years, it appears that you all have patched that relationship up,
00:53which means there had to be some sort of deal that was there,
00:58and it must have been quite a deal.
01:01So, since we're talking about broadcast rights and what they're worth,
01:05why don't you tell me what the broadcast rights in China are worth,
01:11and how much NBA owners have invested in China?
01:20Thank you, Senator.
01:23The NBA does have a very long history of distributing our games and content in China
01:34for more than 30 years.
01:37No, I'm not asking about the length of time you've been in China.
01:41I'm asking, what are the media rights worth?
01:45You're the president of Global Content and Media Distribution.
01:49So, what are those rights worth,
01:52and how much have the NBA owners invested in China?
01:57The NBA does not comment publicly on the financial terms of our relationships in the U.S. or abroad,
02:10but I can comment that you are accurate that,
02:14in light of the tweet that Daryl Morey made in 2019...
02:21You had to cut a deal.
02:23No, we did not cut a deal.
02:24Oh, you did?
02:25No, we did not cut a deal.
02:26What happened was, the games were taken off of CCTV, you're right.
02:31The games continued to air on Tencent and other distribution outlets in China.
02:36And then, after more than a year...
02:39So, did you make any concessions on free speech?
02:42No, to the contrary.
02:44Not at all.
02:45Because the estimates are that these media rights are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to you all,
02:51and that NBA team owners have invested as much as $10 billion.
02:58And I think some clarity around those numbers would be important.
03:05The other thing that we look at is human rights,
03:12and we look at how the NBA has punished players who have spoken out against human rights abusers in China.
03:22Enos Kanter, Freedom, one specifically.
03:26So, can you commit to me that in every deal the NBA makes around the globe that the league is upholding human rights,
03:38and that the league is upholding freedom of speech,
03:43and they're upholding the American ideals of freedom?
03:48Can you make that commitment?
03:49Senator, I can certainly confirm that one of the NBA's most important values is freedom of speech.
03:59In fact, the example you cited before of Daryl Morey,
04:02he was not disciplined or censored in any way in light of the comments that he made.
04:09And you're right that that comment may have led to the lack of coverage by CCTV and other things.
04:18But, you know, we very much value freedom of speech, and that's something that I can confirm,
04:25and it's something that's one of our...
04:27What about your actions in Rwanda?
04:32You're the global president.
04:34You ought to have an answer on that one.
04:36Mr. Proper, let me come to you, if you don't mind.
04:39Sure.
04:40One of the things that we are concerned about, and Senator Klobuchar touched on this,
04:50is pirated broadcasts that are available.
04:56And the Predators are mighty popular in Tennessee.
05:01People love going to those games.
05:03And as we were looking at this, I think it's $28 billion in potential revenue loss that is there from pirated.
05:11So tell me what you're doing to combat the rise of these illegal sports streaming,
05:19because, you know, the players aren't benefiting from that.
05:25Thank you, Senator.
05:25It's a great question, and it's something that everybody struggles with.
05:28The fact of the matter is, we have an outside service that helps us to track pirated broadcasts.
05:34We work with our broadcast partners.
05:36We have gotten orders of court that have allowed us, in certain markets, to stop these pirated broadcasts.
05:45But at the end of the day, many of them come from foreign jurisdictions.
05:50They are what we affectionately refer to as whack-a-mole.
05:53You knock one down and two more pop up.
05:55But you can rest assured that everybody's trying to do the best they can worldwide.
06:00But any tools that come available to us, we will all use, because it is a definite drag on our industry.
06:07Thank you, Mr. Chairman.