Basketball is the most popular sport in China. According to Ampere’s Sport – Consumer survey in Q4 2022, over half of Chinese sports fans (53%) say they enjoy basketball, with 22% citing it as their favourite sport. Football (soccer), the second most popular sport in the country, is the favourite of 21% of fans, and enjoyed by 48%. China is the only country covered by Ampere’s survey where basketball is the top sport, with football the most popular in eight out of the 12 countries included. And, despite the popularity of the NBA, basketball comes second to American football in the USA.

In 2023, basketball has also surpassed football as the top sport by media rights value in China, with a total value of $316m (2.18bn CNY). This total includes events such as this year’s FIBA Basketball World Cup and the Chinese Basketball Association, but the bulk of it comes from Tencent’s deal with the NBA.

Tencent signed its first five-year contract with the US basketball league in 2015 for $500m, and then acquired the rights to NBA League Pass for an additional $29m for the 2016-2020 seasons. When it renewed the rights from 2020 to 2025, the contract tripled in value, totalling $1.5bn over five years i.e. $300m per season. In 2023, this accounts for almost half (47%) of the total value of sports rights deals agreed in China to date.

Until recently, football accounted for a larger share of spend on sports rights in China than basketball, due to high value deals for a number of football leagues. The most notable of these are China Sports Media’s five-year deal for the top domestic football league, the Chinese Super League (CSL), agreed in 2016 for $1.25bn (8bn CNY) and the three-year deal agreed between PPTV and the English Premier League in 2019 for £564m ($700m) over three seasons.

However, the latter deal was terminated after the first year, due to PPTV’s failure to pay the rights fees, and Tencent picked up the rights for the following season for $40m – 17% of the previous season’s value. Tencent also acquired the rights for the Chinese Super League from 2021 onwards for just $12m per season. This decrease in value of the CSL may, in part, be due to rule changes limiting numbers of foreign players along with the introduction of salary caps, ending the influx of stars transferring from European leagues that had been seen in previous years.

The drops in value of both of these competitions led to the proportion of TV rights accounted for by football falling dramatically in 2021, allowing basketball to become the sport with the largest share. The FIFA World Cup boosted the value of football in the country again in 2022, but basketball is back as the highest value sport in 2023.