Business
NBA looks to China for growth, renewing a foothold in its second-largest market
Michael Porter Jr. #17 of the Brooklyn Nets shoots the ball during practice and media availability as part of 2025 NBA Global Games China at Venetian Arena on October 9, 2025 in Macao, China.
Ryan Stetz | National Basketball Association | Getty Images
MACAO — The National Basketball Association returns to China for the first of two Macao games on Friday, and the impact extends beyond the preseason.
The weekend marks a major milestone for the NBA, as years of rebuilding its relationship with its second-largest market culminate with the Phoenix Suns and Brooklyn Nets facing off in the Venetian Arena here. For the NBA, it could mean unlocking future growth in China as television viewership declines in the U.S.
The NBA’s return to China comes after a six-year hiatus following 2019 comments by Daryl Morey, then-Houston Rockets general manager, voicing support for Hong Kong protestors and setting off an international crisis. For the next three years, the league was largely absent from Chinese airwaves in China. Nearly every Chinese sponsor cut ties with the NBA.
But the NBA’s history in China dates back to the 1970s. Since 1979, the NBA and USA basketball have played a total of 48 games in China, according to NBA data. Demand for the 2025 Macao games, set for Friday and Sunday, was high: At the upper end, tickets were going for more than $3,000.
And there are signs of progress off the court, too.
The league on Thursday announced a renewed partnership with Alibaba, making the tech company’s cloud unit the official cloud computing and AI partner of NBA China. The partnership already included a dedicated NBA section across Alibaba platforms that allow fans in China to engage in content or shop for NBA merchandise.
Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai owns the Nets.
The NBA is hoping to tap into basketball fans among China’s 1.4 billion-person population as the league grapples with cord-cutting and changing viewership habits at home. Last season, television viewership dipped.
Meanwhile, in China, the NBA has won a massive fan base. It’s the most-followed sports league on social media, according to the league, with 425 million followers across league, team and player platforms. To put that number in perspective, that’s more than the entire population of the United States.
The league has also been investing in infrastructure in China. It now has four flagship stores, 45 NBA kids stores, seven NBA e-commerce flagship stores and more than 5,000 partner retail stores across the country.
“We’ve created a lot of fan experiences here, and the goal is to really make something special where the fans of the NBA in Asia and China can really get a true taste of what the NBA has to offer,” said Patrick Dumont, Dallas Mavericks owner and Las Vegas Sands president, who was an architect of the NBA’s return to China. Las Vegas Sands owns the Venetian in Macao, where the two preseason games will be played.
To raise awareness and give back to the local communities, the league has hosted more than 140 community outreach events and built 100 spaces for children and family to learn, live and play in China since 2004. More than 400 current and former NBA players have participated in this program.
This week, the Nets are hosting 13 youth clinics across Hong Kong and Macao, in addition to a basketball court refurbishment project in Hong Kong.
It’s not just at the league level where professional basketball is tapping into China’s potential. At least seven NBA teams and 10 individual players are working with East Goes Global, a marketing and consulting firm that bridges the western brands with Chinese audiences.
“We’re able to localize a ton of their western-facing content, creating new, unique content, even showing up to a lot of the team’s media days to shoot China specific content,” said Andrew Spalter, founder and CEO of the company.
East Goes Global, run by brothers Andrew and Matthew Spalter, also works directly with New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson to grow his international profile in China.
“Jalen is actively speaking to his Chinese audience more so than most athletes have ever done in the past. He’s trying to learn calligraphy, he’s eating Chinese foods, he’s collaborating with Chinese influencers and celebrities,” said Matthew Spalter, chief operating officer at East Goes Global.
Dumont said the Macao games are part of a multi-year deal and that executives are already thinking about next year.
“I think it’s the classic win, win, win,” he said. “It’s great for the NBA because it gets to bring its best product, top teams, real games, real experiences, and it allows local fans who maybe don’t have the ability to get to the U.S. to get to experience the NBA and see basketball played at the highest level.”
Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
UniQure needs to run another study to prove that its gene therapy “actually helps people with Huntington’s disease,” a senior U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said on a call with reporters Thursday.
The official, who requested anonymity before discussing sensitive information, confirmed the agency has asked the company to run a placebo controlled trial of its treatment, which is administered directly into the brain. UniQure has said that type of study isn’t ethical because it would require putting people under general anesthesia for hours, a characterization the official disputed.
“So what is really going on? UniQure is the latest company to make a failed therapy for Huntington’s patients,” the official said. “They likely acknowledge or understand at some deep level that their trial failed years ago, and instead of doing the right thing and running the correct clinical study, UniQure is performing a distorted or manipulated comparison in the mind of FDA.”
The comments mark the latest development in a messy public spat between UniQure and the FDA, and as the agency comes under fire for a number of recent drug approval application rejections, including some where companies have accused it of going back on previous guidance. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick last week seemingly criticized UniQure’s gene therapy for Huntington’s disease. Makary didn’t name UniQure but described its treatment.
UniQure then accused the FDA of reversing its stance that the company’s clinical trial data would be sufficient to seek approval. UniQure’s study used an outside database to measure how patients with Huntington’s disease might decline without treatment, known as an external control. UniQure has said it wouldn’t be feasible to run a true randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study, considered the gold standard, because it wouldn’t be ethical to make people undergo a sham hours-long brain surgery.
The FDA official said the agency “never agreed to accept this distorted comparison” and the FDA “never makes such assurances.” Instead, the “FDA will always say, ‘Well, we have to see the data when we get it.'”
UniQure didn’t immediately comment.
The company’s stock rose more than 10% on Thursday and has fallen 58% this year as of Thursday afternoon.
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The average long-term US mortgage rate edged higher this week, ending a three-week decline as bond yields rose amid oil-price pressures linked to the war with Iran.The benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate increased to 6% from 5.98% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said on Thursday. A year ago, the average rate stood at 6.63%, AP reported.The modest uptick breaks a three-week slide in borrowing costs, with mortgage rates having hovered close to the 6% mark for most of this year. Last week’s average had marked the first time the rate dipped below 6% since September 2022, reaching its lowest level in nearly three and a half years.Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policy, investor expectations about inflation and economic growth, and movements in the bond market.They typically track the direction of the 10-year US Treasury yield, which lenders use as a benchmark for pricing home loans.The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.14% at midday Thursday, up from around 4% a week earlier.Treasury yields have moved higher in recent days as rising oil prices added fresh inflation concerns, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve’s plans to cut interest rates.
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US stocks today: Dow tumbles 800 points, S&P 500 and Nasdaq slip as oil surges after Iran tanker strike – The Times of India
US stock markets fell on Thursday as investors turned cautious after the previous session’s rally, while rising oil prices and geopolitical tensions weighed on sentiment.The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 801 points, or 1.6 per cent, dragged down by losses in stocks such as Caterpillar and Goldman Sachs. The S&P 500 declined 0.9 per cent, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.6 per cent.The selloff came as crude oil prices jumped to their highest level since June 2025 after Iran said it had struck an oil tanker with a missile. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures surged 6 per cent to trade above $79 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude futures rose about 3 per cent to more than $84 per barrel. Oil prices had stabilised in the previous trading session.Markets had rallied on Wednesday, supported by gains in technology and semiconductor stocks. The Dow had snapped a three-day losing streak, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite ended the session with solid gains.Despite the ongoing US-Israeli air campaign against Iran, US markets have performed relatively better than European and Asian counterparts this week, largely supported by a rebound in technology stocks that had been hit hard during February’s selloff.The tech-led recovery in the previous session helped the Nasdaq erase its weekly losses, putting the index on track to end the week in positive territory if gains hold through Friday.Investors remain concerned that prolonged disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a key global energy corridor –could push oil prices higher and add to inflationary pressures through rising energy and shipping costs.Markets are particularly wary of crude prices moving towards $100 per barrel, which could complicate the Federal Reserve’s efforts to control inflation while considering interest-rate cuts.“For the past couple of years, bringing inflation down has been the Fed’s entire focus, and they were finally making progress. But if energy stays expensive, inflation could start climbing again and that would force the Fed to rethink its plans,” said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of 50 Park Investments, Reuters quoted.According to data compiled by LSEG, investors are increasingly expecting the Federal Reserve to delay a 25-basis-point interest rate cut to September from the previously anticipated July timeline.Among sectors, healthcare led declines on the S&P 500, dropping 1.6 per cent. The energy index, however, gained 0.7 per cent, with shares of ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy rising about 2 per cent each.The CBOE volatility index (VIX), widely seen as a gauge of market fear, rose 0.9 points to 22.08, reflecting cautious investor sentiment. The small-cap Russell 2000 index fell 1 per cent.Travel and tourism stocks, which are sensitive to fuel costs, were under pressure. Delta Air Lines slipped 3.3 per cent, while Royal Caribbean Cruises declined 0.6 per cent.On the other hand, some travel booking companies rallied sharply. Booking Holdings jumped 11 per cent and Expedia surged 8 per cent after a report by The Information said OpenAI was scaling back on-platform shopping checkout plans for ChatGPT, easing concerns about disruption to online marketplace businesses.Chip stocks showed mixed performance. Nvidia edged down 0.3 per cent, while Marvell Technology gained 1.3 per cent.Shares of Broadcom rose 2.9 per cent after the chip designer projected that its artificial intelligence chip revenue could exceed $100 billion next year.Elsewhere, Trade Desk surged 22.5 per cent following a report that OpenAI had held early discussions with the advertising technology company regarding the sale of advertisements.Economic data released on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits remained unchanged last week.Investors are also awaiting remarks from Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michelle Bowman later in the day, ahead of the closely watched non-farm payrolls report due on Friday.On the New York Stock Exchange, declining stocks outnumbered advancers by a ratio of 2.48-to-1, while on the Nasdaq the ratio stood at 1.63-to-1.The S&P 500 recorded four new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite registered 17 new highs and 33 new lows.
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