BEIJING — In China, there is one bastion of American capitalism and culture that no one is shy about supporting: the N.B.A. The country’s insatiable appetite for American basketball was on display this week in Shanghai and Beijing, where the Brooklyn Nets played the Sacramento Kings in exhibition games.
The Global Games — as N.B.A. teams’ games outside North America have come to be known — are greeted in China as the sports equivalent of the Academy Awards. It is the one time each year that fans can watch stars whom they have studied on CCTV-5 broadcasts play live.
“The N.B.A. is just too thrilling,” said Wang Lianying smoothing an “I ♥ NBA” sticker on her cheek as a Chinese M.C. directed the crowd at the 18,000-seat MasterCard Center here to roar its approval for the Brooklynettes, the Nets’ dance team. “I was here last year and just had to come again.”
The N.B.A. averages five million viewers a game in China for its television broadcasts, three million more than for its cable broadcasts in the United States last year. The league has 80 million followers on its Chinese social media accounts, making it the country’s most popular sports league by that measure.
With preseason pilgrimages like this one, the league hopes to cultivate new audiences and cash in on its growing Chinese fan base. An estimated 300 million people play basketball nationwide, but there still appears to be immense room left for market growth.
“For anyone that wants to go global, you have to be relevant in China,” said Brett Yormark, the chief executive of the Nets, who has made six trips to China in the last year and a half. Last year, the Agricultural Bank of China, one of China’s so-called Big Four state-owned banks, was a Nets sponsor, and Yormark said the team was close to developing three or four other major partnerships with Chinese companies. “They see us as the bridge from Beijing to Brooklyn,” he said.
The N.B.A. is fortunate that basketball’s broad appeal transcends national lines. Even Xi Jinping, China’s president, is a fan — he took in a Los Angeles Lakers game in the United States in 2012. The league has been able to promote its brand through cooperation with the Chinese government at its highest levels.
“It wasn’t that long ago when people spoke of Ping-Pong diplomacy, but I think we’ve now entered the era of basketball diplomacy,” said David Shoemaker, chief executive of N.B.A. China.
The next night, crowds trying to escape the maw of the Beijing subway were subjected to a gantlet of scalpers.
“Do you need tickets? How many? I’ve got a great deal,” said one man, who offered courtside seats with a face value of 3,200 renminbi for 2,000 renminbi (about $325) and whose cheapest nosebleed seats would still set a fan back 200 renminbi, a bit over $30.
Inside the stadium, fans waited impatiently for the Nets to put Kevin Garnett into the game, chanting, “K.G.! K.G.!” during every timeout. At halftime, Wang Shuo, a lifelong basketball fan, said that he was enjoying the game, but that he, like many others, had come to see a few star players rather than support a particular team. “The most exciting thing all evening has been waiting for K.G. to play,” he said.
Garnett never did, and disappointed fans started trickling out in the fourth quarter.
The crowd was often subdued; at times, it seemed almost as if the fans might break out into golf claps. American crowd staples failed to translate and rouse them — not the part of the cha-cha slide that instructs everybody to clap their hands, and certainly not the Baha Men’s query, “Who let the dogs out?” There was silence where each responding “Who?” should have been.
“Last year, Kobe Bryant was here, so the crowds were so much more high, more full of energy,” said Jia Guo, a cameraman for Chengdu Radio and TV.
Though the players seemed inclined to say only positive things about their interaction with Chinese fans, Nets point guard Deron Williams said afterward that the crowd lacked a certain energy. “At times it was a little dull, but they like exciting plays, and when those exciting plays happen, they cheer,” he said.
The crowd was at its most enthusiastic when the retired N.B.A. players Peja Stojakovic, Vlade Divac and Mitch Richmond trotted out to center court.
Terry Rhoads, managing director of Zou Marketing, a sports branding company, put the country’s fascination with N.B.A. stars in context by noting that fans here are always in search of the most superlative athletes. “They’re enamored with the best,” he said.
When it comes to basketball, the N.B.A. has that market cornered. China’s own league, the Chinese Basketball Association, remains dependent on a Soviet-style system of player development that struggles to produce top talent. At Wednesday’s game, fans’ comparisons of the Chinese league to the N.B.A. were met with laughs and scoffs.
“The N.B.A. is so much better,” said Sandra Li, who came to the game to show her 3-year-old son what American basketball was like. “Even though more and more kids are starting to play basketball in China, the game just has too short of a history here.”
On Tuesday, Nets center Brook Lopez said: “They’re just rooting for a good game. They really enjoy tight, close games, from what I’ve seen.”
It was clear this was the case as the clock wound down in overtime. Riveted and energized at long last, the fans cheered great plays on both sides with equal fervor as the Nets beat the Kings, 129-117, after beating them, 97-95, on Sunday in Shanghai.
“Watching the N.B.A. is our chance to get to better know Western sports culture, with all its intense, confrontational scenes and slam dunks,” James Qian said. “It’s quite eye-opening for Chinese people to get to see this kind of high-level basketball.”
REBOUNDS
Brook Lopez will miss 10 to 14 days due to a right midfoot sprain sustained during an exhibition game Wednesday night in Beijing, the Nets announced Thursday night. Lopez, a 26-year-old center, has fractured his right foot twice in his career, most recently in December. He also had surgery earlier this year to repair a damaged ligament in his left ankle. The Nets said tests administered Thursday showed no fracture in the foot.