The National Basketball Association is dealing with some collateral damage as President Trump’s executive order to ban U.S. businesses from working with the Chinese social media platform WeChat, due to concerns relating to national security. WeChat’s parent company is Tencent which owns the streaming rights to NBA games in China.
It is still unclear if all of Tencent’s U.S. based partners will be banned from conducting business or only those relating directly to WeChat. The NBA did confirm it has 1.4 million followers on the WeChat platform.
Outside of the United States, China is the most lucrative market for the professional basketball league with an estimated valuation of more than $5 billion according to CNBC.