NBA has returned to China for the first time since 2019, where two pre-season matches will take place this weekend in Macau between the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns. Basketball is one of China's most popular sports and NBA is very followed there, and the presence of the NBA there tries to soften the tense diplomatic relations between USA and China.
Those tensions reached a breaking point in 2019, by a single tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supporting the Hong Kong protests. As a result, China suspended the television rights to NBA and Chinese sponsors were forced to cut ties with the American league.
Six years later, all of that is forgiven: televised NBA slowly returned in China, and finally some fans will be able to see them in person (for the first time to the gambling hub of Macau), and at the same time, NBA announces a multi-year partnership with Alibaba, one of China's largest technology companies. NBA wants to "enhance fan experiences2 using Alibaba's cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.