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When China’s opening-up to the outside world was in full swing in the late 1980s, Michael Jordon was in his prime and, looking back, one can see the inkling of what was to become a sports obsession among a nation of a billion.
It didn’t hurt either, years later, when the 7 foot 6 inch Chinese native Yao Ming was selected first in the NBA draft.
But few will argue that these superstars were beloved by Chinese fans in the way Kobe Bryant was. Bryant died Sunday in a helicopter crash in California, along with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna.
Once his popularity in China became well established, he visited nearly every year. His iconic purple and gold number 24 was the top-selling jersey in China for years, and is still widely sold at the growing number of NBA stores found in Chinese malls. He was also a leading spokesperson for Nike NKE, -2.51% in the country.
In 2009, he became a “cultural ambassador” for the Asia Society, at a ceremony attended by Liu Peng, director of China’s sports ministry and a member of the country’s elite Communist Party Central Committee. That same year he started the Kobe Bryant China Fund, a charity that raises money for youth programs in China.
He even once had a basketball-focused reality show on Chinese television.
The news of his death shot up almost immediately to the top of the trending items on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media site, where he has more than 9 million followers.
“I’ve been coming here since ’98 and because of that I’ve built quite a following, so it’s always fun to come back,” he said last year.
Kobe’s rise as China’s most beloved basketball star happened as the country became obsessed with the game. It’s hard to know how much he fueled this national passion, and how much he was a beneficiary. Many cite the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the apex of his Chinese fandom; as captain of the team he led the U.S. national squad to a dramatic win over Spain for the gold medal.
Since then Chinese viewership has skyrocketed. The league said 600 million people in China tuned in for the 2017-18 NBA season, with the vast majority watching through tech giant Tencent Holdings’s mobile platforms.
Unlike in the U.S., digital and mobile streaming has been the mode of choice for the mostly young male demographic that dominates Chinese basketball viewership. The league signed a five-year, $700 million deal with Tencent in 2015, renewing it this summer for another five years for a reported $1.5 billion.
However, airing of NBA games in China is currently in flux, after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey inflamed Beijing in October by tweeting in support of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
China’s love for the sport seems a genuine appreciation of the beauty of the game. But other factors are at play. Soccer has also become popular in China, and the country wanted to embrace its domestic league and national team, but they became the butt of jokes after numerous scandals and years of poor performances by the national team.
“Chinese soccer broke my heart,” said 70-year-old Zhu Jiqing, from Sichuan province, in China’s southwest. “So I started watching basketball. And now I’m hooked.”
When asked about his feelings toward Bryant, Zhu responded with one of the nicknames the Chinese have given him. “He was the ‘Flying Hero.’”
One famous anecdote that many Chinese remember is Bryant telling a reporter that he often gets up at 4 a.m. to begin training. His final message on Weibo to his Chinese fans was a video wishing them a happy new year. Several comments under the post, time-stamped 4 a.m. China time, said they refused to believe the news of his death, and urged their “old friend” to wake up and begin the routine that made him one of the best players in the history of the game.
Tanner Brown is a contributor to MarketWatch and Barron’s and producer of the Caixin-Sinica Business Brief podcast.
