For most NBA fans, especially Chinese NBA fans, July 20th 2011 is a day to remember. At that day, Yao Ming, the famous NBA player, announced his retirement.
It is not only a huge loss for those fans who loved him, but also a loss for the NBA . What NBA lost is more than a talented player like Yao, more important, they may lost the big market in China.
As we all know, China has the largest population in the world. People who watch NBA games are more than you can count. But how many of them are truly in love with this game, how many of them watch NBA games just because Yao? A research on the internet shows that there are more than 40% of audiences began to watch NBA games after Yao entered the league. And many fans already considered Huston Rockets as their hometown team which Yao is played for. From this we can tell how important is Yao for NBA if they want to extended their market in China. And NBA’s marketers saw that. They held a pre-season game in China next year, Huston Rockets vs. another NBA team. Let Yao help them to advertise their games products and so on. The result turned to be better than they expected. In the next few years, they held some more games in China
, and some commercial activities like some famous NBA star’s China Tour and NBA Jam Van
. They successfully extended their markets in China, more and more people began to know more about NBA.
However, the retirement of Yao no doubt is a bad news for them. What they have to do to keep the market in China after Yao’s leave? What are the changes in their marketing strategies? Those questions are what we will be interested in the future.