Rewards are easy for international sports leagues and organizations: lucrative broadcast deals, lots of sponsorship opportunities, millions of new subscribers.
The risks are also obvious: compromise with values, nightmares of public relations, general environment of opacity.
Over the years, they have surveyed the Chinese market, measured these factors, and come up with the same basic math: the advantages of doing business there outweigh the potential downsides. The NBA could be mistaken for a humble political crisis based on a single tweet, and the rich deal could disappear in the thin air overnight, but China had the idea, a potential gold mine. And that's why leagues, teams, governing bodies and athletes oppose any opportunity to tap into it.
Recent events, however, may change that thinking for the better and raise a new question: Is it still appropriate to do business in China?
The sports world signaled a resurgence last week when the Women's Tennis Association - one of the many organizations working aggressively over the past decade to gain a foothold in the Chinese market - threatened to shut down the business altogether if the government failed. To ensure the safety of Peng Shuai. Peng, a top female tennis player who was once hailed by state media as "our Chinese princess", has recently disappeared from public life following allegations of sexual harassment against a prominent former government official.
The WTA threat was significant not only for its reasoning but also for its rarity.
But Chinese President Xi Jinping is ruling through an increasingly heavy-handed personal worldview, and China's aggressive approach to geopolitics and its record on human rights have made the country a growing target for critics and activists who do business there. , Sports leagues and organizations may soon be forced to reevaluate their long-term estimates.
Such direct confrontations are already happening elsewhere: EU lawmakers recently called for stronger ties with Taiwan, an island China claims as its territory, months after European officials blocked a landmark trade agreement for human rights concerns and gave China a label. "The ubiquitous threat."
For most sports organizations, the WTA position is an extrovert. Sports organizations with multi-million dollar partnerships in China - the NBA, the English Premier League, Formula 1 auto racing or the International Olympic Committee - have largely allayed concerns.
Some partners have at times accepted China's various demands. Some politely apologized. The IOC, perhaps the most notable example, seems to have gone out of its way to avoid angering China even after the disappearance of former Olympian Peng.
But ignoring an improved public opinion can be difficult for sports organizations. For example, this year's Pew Research Center report found that 67% of Americans have negative feelings about China, up from 46% in 2018. Similar changes have taken place in other Western democracies.
Mark Dreyer, a sports analyst at Beijing-based China Sports Insider, says the WTA's stalemate with China represents an increase in "their or our" mentality that appears to be developing between China and its Western rivals.
Threats from the WTA could serve as a sign of impending showdown, in which case, Dreyer said, China could lose.
"Honestly, China is a big market, but the rest of the world is still big," he said. "And if the people have to choose, they will not choose China."
To some experts, the WTA's extraordinary decision to deal with China could actually signal a turning point rather than a confusion.
"Part of the calculation is political, part is moral, part is economic," said Simon Chadwick, a professor of international sports business at the Emilion Business School in Lyon, France. Where parties seem to be more focused on deviating from socio-economic ideology. "I think we're rapidly moving into an area where companies, businesses and sponsors will be forced to choose one direction or the other," Chadwick said.
The WTA's own face hardened. Just three years ago, the company unveiled a deal that would turn Shenzhen, China, into the new home of its tour finals for a decade starting in 2019, with a new stadium and an annual prize pool of মিল 14 million. In 2019, just before the epidemic, WTA hosted nine tournaments in China.
Fast forward to last week, when WTA CEO Steve Simon said in an interview with The New York Times that China was willing to suspend operations in the country if it did not agree to an independent investigation into Peng's claims.
"There are a lot of decisions being made today that are not just about right and wrong," he said.
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