I’m grateful for my time on the court and for your recognition tonight,” Yao said during his hall of fame induction speech.ĭespite a rather short career in the NBA, Yao's impact is lasting.
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Yao himself acknowledged that his career “ended too soon” as he was inducted.
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“But I have no doubt that over a long life, he’s going to end up probably having as great an impact on this game as anyone who has ever played.” “ career was cut short, and I think he didn’t achieve everything he wanted to on the floor,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said at the 2015 All-Star Weekend. It’s just one of the many programs Yao uses to spread his love of basketball to China’s youth. In 2014, Yao and NBA China opened the first-ever NBA Yao School in Beijing, providing after-school basketball training and fitness program for children. But the biggest move the star center has made is his off the court impact. In 2016, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame. Yao was selected to the All-Star Game all eight seasons of his NBA career. It's believed an estimated 200 million people in China watched the regular season showdown. In 2007, when Yao squared off against fellow Chinese-born NBA play Yi Jianlian, millions tuned in to watch the game on CCTV, 13 other sports channels, and three websites, according to NBA China. After becoming the first international player ever to be selected with the first overall pick in the draft without having played college basketball in the US, Yao’s popularity quickly soared, adding to the NBA’s popularity in China. The NBA struck gold when Chinese-born Yao Ming established himself as a superstar for the Houston Rockets. That’s not just bigger than any other sport – it’s bigger than any other company or brand or effort out there." The NBA has well over 100 million followers on social media here. So if you took the 1.4 billion people who live in China, more than half watched a game. There are 765 million in China who watched at least one NBA game (last season). "You’ve now spent almost a week in China, so I’m sure you’ve gotten a sense of the metrics and measurements of how popular the game is. "It’s hard to even put it into perspective," said David Shoemaker, CEO NBA China, when addressing members of the Houston Rockets and New Orleans Pelicans gathered in Beijing for the Global Games last year. Currently, there are more than 70 million NBA followers on Weibo and WeChat in China.
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Its website has over 8.6 million registered fans. The NBA's official blog in China has over 33 million fans. Recognizing the importance of its fan base in China in 2003, the NBA started offering All-Star game ballots in three languages- Chinese, Spanish and English- for fans around the globe to vote for their favorite players.īasketball has seen an unprecedented rise in popularity in China since 1987 when the NBA started selling the game footage to the all-sports television channel of China Central Television (CCTV). A few weeks later, Yao Ming became the third and without question one of the most celebrated Chinese players to join the NBA after Mengke Bateer. Despite a time difference that coincided with the Chinese morning rush hour, NBA games frequently were watched by at least 10 million people in China that year, according to the New York Times.