article | Fu Zhenghao
Recently, former NBA superstar Dwight Howard (Dwight Howard) officially confirmed that it will join the Taoyuan Yongfeng Yunleopard team in the Taiwan T1 Basketball League. He is the largest foreign aid introduced in the entire history of Taiwan basketball (Taiwanese compatriots are used to call it "foreign generals"), and his joining will undoubtedly help increase the attention and commercial value of the Yunbao team and even the entire Taiwan basketball. Stimulated by this news, the share price of of Yunbao Energy, the major shareholder of Yunbao team, once rose 7% during the session.
However, compared with the excitement of Taiwanese fans, both American and mainland Chinese fans were surprised by howard 's choice to play in Taiwan. Because in the public's impression, Taiwan's basketball league is not of high level in terms of competitive level or player income in the entire East Asia, and lacks sufficient competitiveness in attracting big-name stars to join. In the past, NBA stars often chose CBA league in mainland China for gold hunting in the past. Even the top stars in Taiwan are proud to join CBA. Specifically, the T1 league that Howard joined is a brand new league founded in September 2021, with only 6 teams, which is not the best league even in Taiwan. So, why did Howard choose to play in Taiwan’s newly founded T1 League?
You should know that as the former superstar of the NBA, Howard was honored in his 18-year NBA career. He was the No. 1 NBA pick in 2004. He was elected as the NBA's best defensive player of the year three times, was selected as the NBA All-Star lineup 8 times, was selected as the NBA All-Star 8 times (5 first teams, 1 second team, 2 third teams), was elected as the NBA rebounder 5 times, and was awarded as the NBA block 2 times, and helped the Lakers win the NBA championship in the 2019-2020 season. Throughout history, Howard is even one of the most well-known and comprehensive influence among all NBA players who go overseas to play (before, Pippen, who had retired for four years in 2007 and had played three games in Northern Europe, and Wilkins played in the Greek League in the 1995-96 season).
Considering Howard's NBA achievements and influence, when he chose to join the unknown Taiwanese basketball league around the world, this immediately became a hot news reported by Chinese and foreign media. Looking at these news reports, Chinese and American fans were a little surprised by Howard's choice. American fans generally believe that Howard averaged 6.2 points and 5.9 rebounds per game last season, he still has the opportunity to get a veteran's basic salary in the NBA team. Even if he goes overseas to play, with his strength, he can choose , UEFA or China's CBA. Choosing to play in Taiwan with a low competitive level may very likely mean that Howard completely gave up the opportunity to return to the NBA. In the eyes of Chinese fans, since Howard chose to play in Asia, the CBA is the most suitable league for him, whether it is the league attention, competitive strength or salary income.
According to the sports business, many CBA teams have previously contacted Howard's agent team. Among them, Shanghai Jiushi Men's Basketball Team and Guangdong Hongyuan Men's Basketball Team both communicated Howard's joining to varying degrees, but unexpectedly, in the end, Taiwanese basketball won unexpectedly in Howard's battle. ‘
With Howard's announcement of joining the Taoyuan Yongfeng Yunbao team in the T1 League, this will not only give Yunbao team and the T1 League a wide range of attention, but the newly established T1 League is expected to gain an advantage in the competition with Taiwan's two other basketball leagues SBL and PLG, but will also attract more people to understand and examine Taiwan basketball, which is distinctive in packaging promotion.
For Taiwan, which has an area of only 35,800 square kilometers and a population of only 23.6 million, it can carry three basketball leagues at the same time and hold all of them vividly. The teams of the three basketball leagues can also compete across the league, which is very entertaining. This phenomenon is undoubtedly worthy of in-depth thinking by basketball practitioners, and this time Howard's airborne landing in Baodao is undoubtedly an opportunity to deeply observe Taiwanese basketball.
Howard's monthly salary may reach 350,000 US dollars in Taiwan. The CBA closed-loop competition system makes it difficult for him to adapt to
Why did Howard choose to play in Taiwan, China? This made many media and fans quite curious.
Originally, Howard's first choice was to stay in the NBA. In the 2021-2022 season, Howard averaged 6.2 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, and his shooting percentage was as high as 61.2%. Just looking at the efficiency value, Howard can still play the role of the team's third-level substitute. During the offseason and even at the beginning of the NBA, he also publicly showed off his goodwill to the Warriors, Nets, Celtics, and the Lakers who had played for the past, but he got nothing. The reason may be similar to the reason why he lost the NBA 75 superstar.
It is true that Howard was once a superstar with outstanding talents and honors in the NBA, but his professional attitude has always been criticized. From the Magic at its peak, the Lakers, the Rockets to the Hawks at the late stage of his career, Hornets, Wizards , and 76ers , Howard has been exposed to have problems with his professional attitude, and he usually laughs and lacks enough competitive spirit and motivation to improve himself. He even had a dispute with Kobe and Nash because of his mismatched attitude towards the game. So many celebrities believed that he had not fulfilled his talents, and in the end, Howard became the number one leftover bead that failed to be selected when he was selected for the 75th superstar. Howard believes that the NBA does not respect himself enough, and some people have always regarded themselves as "dressing room troublemakers", which is a stubborn prejudice.
Although Howard's 2019-2020 season in Lakers once improved his reputation through his diligent performance, he later became cute when playing for the 76ers and was exposed to be inconsistent in the team and could not be clear about his weight. Although he is just a substitute, Howard will still act like a superstar to communicate with his teammates and coaches, criticize core players privately, and complain in front of the media that the coach does not set up tactics for himself... And when he returned to the Lakers for the third time last season, he also had physical conflicts with the team's core " thick eyebrows " Davis in the game.
may be worried that Howard will destroy the atmosphere in the locker room, or that Howard, born in 1985, is still older. In short, Howard ultimately failed to receive any NBA team offer this offseason. This disappointed him a lot. In despair, he said that he began to consider a plan to play overseas. Howard said: I don’t want to train hard all summer, practice three times a day, and go on a strict diet but can only sit on the bench to watch others play. I hope to show people that I still have the ability to play on the court. "
As early as the end of August and early September, Howard's agent began to pay attention to the quotes from overseas leagues. With the opening of the NBA on October 19, Beijing time, Howard was convinced that he could not get the NBA contract, and he began to truly turn his target overseas. In late October, many CBA teams were told Howard was seriously evaluating playing in China. Shanghai Jiushi Men's Basketball Team and Guangdong Hongyuan both had in-depth contacts with Howard. Howard initially hoped to get $2 million after tax (the other one was $1.5 million). Once, there were rumors in the industry that Howard might join one of Shanghai or Guangdong Hongyuan. At the same time, several teams in Taiwan also went to Howard. De extended an olive branch, and Howard's battle for him was quite fierce. After weighing the trade-offs, Howard finally chose Taoyuan Yongfeng Cloud Leopards.
Cloud Leopards player and general manager Su Yijie said that they were sincere in the negotiation process with Howard, and communicated for three months for a long time, and worked hard to meet Howard's salary requirements. Although Su Yijie did not disclose how much Howard's salary was, he compared the situation of the CBA Shanghai Men's Basketball Team's foreign aid Beasley's monthly salary of $200,000. When Beasley can get a monthly salary of $200,000, Howard's monthly salary must be more than $200,000. There is a speculation that the monthly salary given to Howard by the Cloud Leopards may be $350,000 after tax or even higher.
CBA Club missed Howard this time, largely because the CBA implemented a closed-loop competition system . Previously, after entering the CBA area, foreign aid Beasley complained that he could not adapt to this boring and single closed-loop life. His mood has always been low and his performance on the field was very sluggish. He was also found to make small moves while singing the national anthem in the prelude to the game, and was immediately fined 10,000 yuan by the CBA. In the end, he left the division after only four games and terminated his contract with the Shanghai Men's Basketball Team. Objectively speaking, the closed-loop tournament life, which has been strictly isolated from the outside world for a long time, has indeed made many players feel a little distressed. Last season's finals, MVP, Zhao Jiwei, , published a public article saying that he had a war-weary mentality and once wanted to find a psychologist to treat it.
In this case, Howard, who is naturally active and jokingly called "happy beast" by Chinese fans, will naturally be cautious about the CBA's possible closed-loop game in the future. Therefore, when the salary difference between the two is not large, Howard chose to play in Taiwan, where he can go to train daily and have more colorful spare time, which is completely in line with his personality characteristics.
The operation of Taiwan basketball under the support of the integration of sports and education has many highlights: the coexistence of the three major leagues is thought-provoking
Howard airborne Taiwan will undoubtedly make the entire Taiwan basketball attract unprecedented attention. In Taiwan, basketball is the second largest sport after baseball , with a very good mass base. Basketball was introduced to Taiwan in 1922, and in the late 1970s, Taiwan began to report on NBA games on a large scale. Overall, although Taiwan’s basketball competitive level is not as top in Asia, Taiwan’s events are based on the integration of sports and education. In addition, they are good at packaging, publicity and marketing, and the atmosphere of the arena is very lively. Therefore, Taiwan’s basketball has a good mass base and high marketization. From campus basketball to adult leagues, there are many highlights.
Taiwan is a model of the integration of sports and sports education. There are no special sports schools in the local area. Elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools and universities all have corresponding leagues. Youths study and play while studying in this four-level event system. Among them, the High School Basketball League (HBL) has very high popularity and is even more popular than the professional league. In the past 30 years since its establishment, HBL has expanded from the initial 129 teams to 285 teams in recent years. It has always adhered to professional operations, delicate broadcasting, and keen on cooperation with the media, so the event has been sought after by all walks of life.
HBL's funding is mainly supported by corporate sponsorship. The league attracts about 25 sponsors every year. In addition, the supplementary school funds and parent support make HBL's development funding very abundant. Because the majority of media are keen on tracking and reporting on HBS, and even often attract criticism due to excessive packaging and publicity, local media often reflect on the excessive marketing of making high school players who should have played purely into idol-level stars, which can easily make students and basketball stars who are immature in their minds lose themselves. Regarding HBS, what the mainland media may have the most impressed is that HBS's Nengren Family Business defeated the talented Tsinghua High School , which triggered reflection on mainland basketball youth training.
Compared with HBS, Taiwan's professional basketball league has always been difficult to say. Although it is good at packaging and publicity, it may occasionally go bankrupt under the self-profit and loss system. In the early 1990s, the establishment of the CBA League was almost the same as the Basketball Office of the State Sports Commission. In 1993, Taiwan, China took the lead and took the lead in establishing the "Chinese Professional Basketball League" (hereinafter referred to as China Professional Basketball, the English abbreviation is also CBA). In order to quickly expand its influence, the league of mainland China invited national players Wang Libin , Song Tao, Zhang Xuelei , Chen Zhenghao and others to Taiwan to participate in the competition.These mainland players are highly respected in Taiwan. With Taiwan basketball's consistent operating style of combining sports and entertainment, these players are no less popular than entertainment stars. Taking Wang Libin, who looks handsome as an example, in addition to playing in Taiwan, he has also made records, played guest roles in hosts and movies, and later served as assistant coach of the Chinese Taipei Men's Basketball Team.
Unfortunately, after playing for six seasons, China Professional Basketball Team encountered the Asian financial crisis, sponsors withdrew their investments, and the league closed down. Instead, some of the top Taiwanese players trained by the league began to come to the mainland to participate in the CBA league that was first started at the time. For example, at that time, Taiwan’s top star Zheng Zhilong joined the Shanghai Men’s Basketball Team and fought side by side with Yao Ming . In 2001, under the operation of Sina founder Jiang Fengnian , Taiwan's Hongguoxiang Basketball Team was renamed "Taiwan Sina Lions" and participated in a season of the CBA League. Qiu Dazong served as the head coach. The team's small and fast-spirited game style was eye-catching and successfully entered playoffs , but after only one season, the team withdrew from the CBA. Four years after the collapse of China's professional basketball basketball team, in April 2003, Zheng Zhilong and others took the lead in establishing the Super Basketball League (SBL). Although SBL has been regarded as the highest-level basketball league in Taiwan for a long time, it has always been a semi-professional men's basketball league, with only 7 teams since its establishment. Many players and coaches have other jobs in addition to playing in the SBL League. Many coaches are university physical education teachers, and players also participate in entertainment activities in their spare time. For example, Yan Xingshu , who once played in CBA, another well-known identity is an actor. He has starred in many film and television works such as "MVP Lover ". 7 SBL teams are all formed by enterprise investment, of which 3 are state-owned enterprises (Taiwanese compatriots call it "public nature"). Because SBL teams need to bear their own profits and losses, the players' salaries are quite different from those of the CBA. Take teams with public backgrounds as an example. Around 2010, when the CBA had already had players' annual salary of 4 million yuan after tax and the team's operating costs were 70 to 80 million yuan, the SBL public investment preliminaries were only 30 million to 60 million Taiwan dollars (approximately 7.5 million to 15 million yuan), and the salary of top players at that time was only tens of thousands of yuan. Therefore, players choose to play in the CBA in mainland China, and their salary is often several times that of SBL. Although it is a semi-professional team, SBL has emerged a large number of famous stars later, the most well-known of which is Lin Zhijie. The group of people led by Lin Zhijie are known as the golden generation of Taiwan and have defeated the Chinese men's basketball team in the 2013 Asian Championships. In view of the outflow of talents in the SBL League and the decline of day by day, in May 2020, Chen Jianzhou, a "black man" who often crossed the basketball and entertainment industry, decided to set up a new door to establish the P.LEAGUE+ League (PLG for short), with a start-up capital of NT$50 million and four founding teams. Chen Jianzhou actively used his media influence and entertainment circle resources to promote the league, and also attracted entertainment stars such as Wang Leehom to participate in 's investment in and promotion, and actively promoted the league in the entertainment circle. The overall packaging promotion of the PLG League was eye-catching, and the number of social media quickly surpassed the SBL. In order to compete with SBL, the PLG League also attracted the NBA's 2013 No. 3 pick Bennett and other big-name foreign players to join. Moreover, PLG League is good at making various fan derivatives, which has also become a major source of income for the league. The PLG League quickly expanded to 6 teams. Chen Jianzhou said in an interview this year that the average PLG League team spent more than NT$100 million (about NT$22.32 million) last season, and some teams still made profits. In 2021, the T1 League was founded, with a total of 6 teams participating. As a result, three basketball leagues appeared in Taiwan at the same time. Although the overall competitive level of the league is not high, each has its own characteristics, full of topics, and the audience scope is also of various emphasis. It is expected to continue to form a three-legged stalemate in the future. SBL has a long history but the income level of semi-professional leagues is limited, and PLG has a high level of entertainment and player income.As a latecomer, the T1 League strives to expand its competitiveness and focus on creating the atmosphere of the venue. The league's cheerleading performance is unique, and artists often make guest appearances on the spot. For example, the cheerleader of the Cloud Leopards is famous for its love of swaying electric buttocks. Now the Cloud Leopards have attracted Howard's heavyweight franchise. In order to support the introduction of Howard by the Cloud Leopards, the T1 League also made an exception to allow the Cloud Leopards to break the foreign aid salary limit of $20,000 per month. For Taiwan, which has a population of only 23.6 million, there can also be three leagues: SBL, PLG, and T1. The three have competition and cooperation. In September 2022, the teams from the three leagues also participated in the 2022 Cross-League Basketball Invitational. From the perspective of competition in the basketball market, all three leagues are held with great success, which is a big and small operational miracle. In contrast, mainland China has 300 million basketball fans. Basketball has long been one of the favorite sports for teenagers. However, at the operational level, not only the 20 clubs in the CBA, which are the top league, have suffered losses for many years, but even the NBL League has been positioned clearly for a long time, which has led to increasingly difficult leagues. In contrast, it is admirable that Taiwanese compatriots insist on combining sports and entertainment in the operation level of basketball league and actively provide considerate services to sponsors and fans. Howard's airborne T1 league this time attracted widespread attention. Mainland Chinese basketball practitioners might as well take this opportunity to deeply observe the operation of the Taiwan League, so that the Chinese basketball league can turn losses into profits as soon as possible and achieve real sustainable development. Note: The pictures used in this article are from the Internet
