Jalen Brunson first experienced the fervor of the N.B.A.’s biggest international market in 2018 when, as a rookie, he traveled with the Dallas Mavericks to China for a pair of preseason games. The trip itself was brief, but the reception that Mr. Brunson and his teammates received left a lasting impression.
“The fandom that basketball brought to that country, I thought it was really cool and interesting and something I wanted to be a part of,” Mr. Brunson said in a recent interview.
Now a star for the New York Knicks, Mr. Brunson, 28, took a crucial step toward that goal before the current N.B.A. season when his representatives at Creative Arts Agency enlisted a digital management company, East Goes Global, to create and run Chinese social media accounts for him. In the months since, Mr. Brunson has gained more than 400,000 followers across five of the country’s major apps: Bilibili, Douyin, RedNote, Weibo and WeChat.
Mr. Brunson is one of several N.B.A. players looking to establish an online presence in China, where millions of people follow the league closely. But given the language barrier and differing societal norms and trends — not to mention an insular Chinese internet where popular western platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and X are blocked and content is reviewed by the government — most have sought help from companies with specific expertise in navigating the digital landscape.
“I think it’s important to understand your audience, and I think a lot of smart people understand what they know and what they don’t know,” Mr. Brunson said. “It was key for me to let someone else do it, because they understand more than me. Even though I am the face of it, they really run it.”
Founded in 2018 by Andrew Spalter, a former music manager who lives in Austin, Texas, East Goes Global is not alone in providing such a service. Coral Lu, a former ESPN reporter, handles the Chinese social media accounts for Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers and Paul George of the Philadelphia 76ers. The IMG-owned company Mailman, based in Shanghai, manages 30 accounts for 14 active players.
“For the player, some people are really motivated by engaging with their global audience, and in cultures where basketball is huge,” said Matthew Spalter, the chief operating officer of East Goes Global, who is Andrew’s brother. “There’s also the business perspective: ‘During my basketball career, how can I scale my business? And, post-career, how can I make sure I’m not gone forever?’”
The player-led push is coming at an important time for relations between the N.B.A. and China. In October 2019, a year after Mr. Brunson’s trip, a pro-Hong Kong social media post from Daryl Morey, then the general manager of the Houston Rockets, led to China pulling N.B.A. games off national television and ending the N.B.A. China Games, which had been played annually since 2012.
The freeze from Mr. Morey’s post, however, has significantly thawed, and the league is planning to play two exhibition games next October in the Chinese territory of Macau. With help from groups like East Goes Global, some players will be ahead of others should the relationship between the league and China return to its previous heights.
The work of the groups typically begins by reaching out to the various platforms to verify the player’s accounts — and often, as with Mr. Brunson, creating them in the first place. But further measures can be required, as when the team at Mailman helped an N.B.A. All-Star client recover his page on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok, after it had been taken over by a mysterious third party that was posting spam content.
Next comes the process of creating content for a Chinese audience. Success, according to the people involved, goes beyond simply using the native language in captions and adding trending background music.
“Mirroring the same content on your Chinese channels as your western ones really isn’t diving deeper into that Chinese culture,” said Michael Lin, a vice president of digital at Mailman who oversees its U.S. sports operation. “Athletes do a lot better when they’re creating personalized content that’s speaking to the Chinese fans.”
For Mr. Brunson, this has meant meeting periodically with East Goes Global staff members to film exclusive videos for his Chinese accounts, including a marathon two-hour session heading into last month’s Chinese New Year during which he sampled Chinese snacks and wrote his name in Chinese characters.
“I thought that was really cool,” he said.
There are numerous business possibilities for N.B.A. players in China. Some have gone on huge tours across the country. Others have signed endorsement deals with Chinese shoe companies. James Harden, a star for the Clippers, sold 10,000 bottles of wine in five seconds during a Douyin livestream.
But Mr. Lin has noticed a particular uptick in requests from players who cite another source of motivation: getting fan votes for the All-Star Game.
The ideal playbook, in that regard, was laid out last season, when Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers rode a wave of Chinese social media support to lead Eastern Conference guards in fan voting, earning a surprising spot as a starter for the 2024 All-Star Game.
“I know people see a player in Indiana and don’t expect that,” Mr. Haliburton said at the media day for that game, “but the love I’ve received from my fans in China has been amazing.”
According to Matthew Spalter, Mr. Brunson’s team at C.A.A. similarly approached East Goes Global about executing a “massive All-Star push” for this year’s game. The results? Even though Mr. Brunson finished third among Eastern Conference guards on fan ballots, he was named a starter under the league’s weighted voting formula, which also incorporated votes from the news media and the players.
“I think it helped a lot, and I’m really appreciative of it,” Mr. Brunson said in February of the help from Chinese fans, adding that he planned to post a message of gratitude after the All-Star break.
Sure enough, a week or so later, a 44-second video was uploaded to Mr. Brunson’s account on Bilibili, China’s equivalent of YouTube. The video features behind-the-scenes footage from his trip to the game in San Francisco.
“Thanks to my friends at Bilibili for voting and supporting me,” the caption read — in Chinese characters, of course.
