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The N.B.A. Returns to China After Six Years

The N.B.A, returns to China this week, after a hiatus sparked by a controversial 2019 tweet. In Macau, New York Times business reporter Tania Ganguli reveals the behind-the-scenes stakeholders who orchestrated the league’s return.

I’m in Macau, the gambling capital of the world. I’m here for the NBA’s return to China for the last six years, there haven’t been any NBA games here. looking at these big banners that are draped over buildings. Reminds me of being back here in 2019. the players were sitting in their hotel and they could see workers tearing those same types of banners down, peeling their faces off the building. A few days before, the Houston Rockets general manager, Daryl Morey, had sent a tweet in support of protesters in Hong Kong. Well, this made the Chinese government very upset. The NBA backed him. We are not apologizing for Daryl exercising his freedom of expression. And then chaos enveloped. That whole week. Sponsors pulled out. And a lot of the players were worried about if they would even be allowed to go home if things got worse. It was it was that surreal. they lost about $400 million. Just from that one situation The Chinese market is huge for the NBA. There are a lot of basketball fans here…. and the league has been working on cultivating them for decades. And so coming here to Macao and playing a game in China again is a very big deal for the league. when you ask anybody with the league how did these games come together? The name that they mentioned is Patrick Dumont. He’s a top executive with the Sands Casino. And owner of the Dallas Mavericks. in 2021, the Chinese government was renegotiating what’s called concessions with the casinos here in Macau. In those concession agreements, the government required that the casinos spend a certain amount on non-gaming activities like entertainment, like sports. And Sands had this arena at the Venetian, so Dumont saw bringing the NBA here as an opportunity to satisfy that requirement. One of the other main players here was Joe Sy, the owner of the Brooklyn Nets. Joe tsai is the chairman of Alibaba Group, which is a Chinese tech giant. he has a lot of deep ties to the Chinese government, the nets, and spent a lot of time over the last few years meeting with Chinese officials, having events that celebrate Chinese culture. they have spoken to Chinese media outlets and said, this market is so important to us. We care about this market more than any other NBA team. They even launched a reality show. That’s a dance team competition to choose dancers for their games here in Macao Sound up: “The brooklyn nets will find the best dancers in china” There’s a tremendous amount at stake for these teams because. The league saw what happened when something went wrong and they lost this market even briefly. there is a feeling that this has to go right, and that this is a big opportunity to get back something that they lost.

The N.B.A, returns to China this week, after a hiatus sparked by a controversial 2019 tweet. In Macau, New York Times business reporter Tania Ganguli reveals the behind-the-scenes stakeholders who orchestrated the league’s return.

By Tania Ganguli, Christina Shaman, Kassie Bracken and Christina Thornell

October 11, 2025

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The plane left John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Tuesday, kicking off a 12-day trip that came with a roughly $60,000 price tag for its passengers, CBS New York reported. 

The trip, described as “a Pan Am journey by private air,” comes as part of a collaboration between Criterion Travel and Bartelings with licensing from Pan American World Airways.

The operators want to give passengers the “opportunity to relive a ‘Golden Age of Travel’ on a specially curated program” with the Pan Am trip, according to a brochure on Criterion Travel’s website.

The itinerary for the round-trip journey features stops in locales that were on Pan Am’s Southern and Northern transatlantic routes, including Bermuda, Lisbon, Portugal, Marseille, France, London, England and Shannon, Ireland.

The brochure for the “Tracing the Transatlantic” trip touts “high-end service, stays at top hotels, fascinating destinations, reminiscences of Pan Am’s glory days, and iconic Pan Am design, logos, and identity popping up throughout.” 

CBS New York reported that a Pan American World Airways flight took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday in what is the start of a 12-day trip costing about $60,000 per passenger. HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The trip is part of a collaboration between Criterion Travel and Bartelings, with licensing from Pan American World Airways. AFP via Getty Images

Stops along the way include Bermuda, Lisbon, Portugal, Marseille, France, London, England, and Shannon, Ireland. dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

The trip is using a Boeing 757-200 jet with lie-flat business-class seats.

“Every detail, from the flight deck, to the cabin, has been designed with care–honoring the golden age of travel while reimagining it for today’s world,” Pan Am Brands said in a Facebook post. 

Flight attendants working on the trip will don uniforms that recreate the ones worn by Pan Am staff when the airline was still operating, CBS New York reported.

“It’s such an honor and a privilege to be stepping into this uniform,” one flight attendant named Anna Maria Aevarsdottir told the outlet.

“We hope we can embrace the grace that they showed America.”

The transatlantic trip was first announced in the summer of last year. 

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Here, Teads CEO David Kostman and Chief Business Officer of the Americas Jeremy Arditi talk to The Post about life post-merger, how the company works with news publishers to win back advertising dollars and to harness the power of AI.

Q: What is the mission of Teads and how do you work with clients to maximize their advertising strategies?

David Kostman: At Teads, we’re focused on creating a platform to drive the best outcomes at large scale
on the open internet, delivering real results for advertisers for all their campaigns from branding to performance. Our goal is to become the one-stop partner for brands and agencies to better connect the steps of the consumer journey — balancing branding and performance marketing strategies to more effectively nurture audiences as they move through the funnel and deliver real business outcomes from their media investment.

Teads Chief Business Officer of the Americas Jeremy Arditi (left) with CEO David Kostman (right). Teads

Jeremy Arditi: Brands have relied for too long on point solutions when advertising on the open internet. There’s a massive opportunity for Teads to become the destination for these advertisers to reach the open internet audience at scale and drive stronger business outcomes from them with a cohesive full-funnel strategy. We know that finding the ideal balance of investment in long-term brand awareness and short-term performance gains is a tantamount issue for modern marketers — we intend to become the partner that enables them to find that ideal balance and seamlessly execute against it.

Q: How has Cannes Lions evolved for your company and what are you most looking forward to this week?

DK: It has been only four months since we merged Outbrain and Teads, and we’re thrilled to
share more about the Teads brand and strategic direction at the Cannes Lions this year. Cannes is a great opportunity to meet so many of our great partners and have in-depth discussions with them around the future of the industry and how Teads will play a major role in their plans.

JA: In 2025, brands are more focused than ever on driving measurable outcomes, especially amidst such high macroeconomic uncertainty. We expect the Lions to feature many discussions around advertising efficiency, results, and the role of AI in powering them. We believe the vision and mission of the new Teads could not be more timely with that in mind — and plan to focus most of our time at Cannes on sharing how we can enable our partners to navigate these critical topics.

Execs talked about how the Outbrain-Teads merger has supercharged its business, making it one of the largest ad platforms on the open internet. Teads

Q: Outbrain recently acquired Teads. How has that amplified your business?

DK: It’s been an exciting time, as the union of Outbrain and Teads forms one of the largest advertising platforms on the open internet – with over $1.6 billion in gross advertising spend. The two companies bring together decades of deep expertise in performance advertising, predictive modeling, omnichannel branding, and video. That combination enables us to not only create a scaled advertising platform — but one that is better positioned to help brands optimize their advertising strategy from branding to performance.

JA: We rolled out the tagline “Elevated Outcomes” to represent the new Teads vision, reflecting our focus on driving real business outcomes with every media dollar while elevating advertiser expectations of the beautiful creative experiences they can deliver from screen to screen. It’s been thrilling to see the market response and how much interest there is in this value proposition just a few short months after the announcement of our merger closing.

Q: Consumers are cautious to spend due to economic uncertainty and news of the tariffs, have you seen an impact on advertising budgets as a result?

DK: We’ve seen advertisers focus more on true business outcomes, given the larger economic uncertainty in the market today. Advertisers want to understand exactly how each step of their marketing funnel, from branding to consideration to performance, correlates to real outcomes and sales ROI [return on investment]. Platforms that are able to offer clear solutions to these questions and point to an attributable result for every investment type will be the ones that thrive in this period.

CEO Kostman said advertisers are focusing more on true
business outcomes in this uncertain economy. Teads

Q: What are some examples of your most successful partnerships?

JA: We’ve built an incredible foundation through the more than 50 Joint Business Partnerships with Fortune 500 brands around the world. This model reflects several of Teads’ core strengths, most of all, our ability to serve as a consultative partner who deeply understands the brand’s larger objectives, brand values, and considerations when reaching their audiences.

With the new Teads, we’re able to expand how we advise these partners – providing solutions to seamlessly connect the creative experience they deliver from CTV [connected television] to web and beyond. All while showing how delivering both branding and performance strategies through one scaled
platform delivers stronger business results. We’re excited to keep expanding this business and become JBPs’ one-stop partner to drive the best business outcomes everywhere their audience consumes media.

Q: Brands have been cautious of advertising with news publishers. How do publishers combat that? What have you seen that works?

DK: The caution here is a perception problem, not a performance problem. We’ve seen brands block trusted news publishers out of caution while running ads next to misinformation on social platforms. That disconnect needs to be challenged. What works is shifting the conversation from emotion to evidence. The reality is, ads on quality news content perform just as well as those on lifestyle or sports pages. Publishers who present this data clearly and use technology to avoid genuinely unsafe content are winning back trust.

Teads is working closely with partners like Stagwell and Prohaska to bring awareness and dollars back to premium news. When brands see that these environments are not only safe but effective, they recognize the value. It’s not about asking them to support journalism out of principle — it’s about showing them it works.

Arditi said AI is set to reshape the future of the industry. Teads

Q: How will AI accelerate the open internet’s ability to become a complement to walled-garden advertising strategies?

DK: Walled gardens have successfully delivered outcomes because of their algorithmic approach, tied directly to deterministic user behavior and interests, optimized for advertiser outcomes across a massive scale of diverse media environments. Still, their access is limited to only specific user moments and mindsets — the open internet provides a broader canvas of moments to generate awareness, influence purchase decisions, and drive outcomes. As a result, it has one of the most diverse quality ranges of engagement, attention, and interest data signals to fuel AI models.

Leveraging these signals effectively can enable us to capture a much larger opportunity in terms of how we connect consumer experiences across screens to drive outcomes. AI will allow us to fill critical gaps in understanding how consumers move through a brand’s marketing funnel. In the past, deterministic insight into the user’s profile has been necessary to enable this. Now, AI is challenging us to re-think what factors we really need to deliver a great, relevant consumer experience that best matches brand offers with consumer moments.

Q: What is the future of platforms and demand-side platforms as brands navigate and harness AI transformation?

JA: AI is set to reshape the future of platforms and DSPs [demand-side platforms], especially in how brands develop and scale campaigns. On the creative side, it enables rapid production and testing of personalized, high-quality assets across screens — something once reserved for large advertisers. At the same time, AI is lowering barriers to entry in CTV, making premium video more accessible to small and medium businesses by reducing costs and simplifying production. As AI continues to evolve, the future of advertising will be defined not just by who has the biggest budget but by who uses technology most intelligently.

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The 737 MAX, which was meant for China’s Xiamen Airlines, landed at Seattle’s Boeing Field, according to a Reuters witness. It was painted with Xiamen livery.

The jet, which made refueling stops in Guam and Hawaii on its 5,000-mile return journey, was one of several 737 MAX planes waiting at Boeing’s Zhoushan completion center for final work and delivery to a Chinese carrier.

The 737 MAX, which was meant for China’s Xiamen Airlines, at Seattle’s Boeing Field on Saturday. REUTERS

President Trump has imposed huge tariffs on China. ZUMAPRESS.com

Trump this month raised baseline tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%. In retaliation, China has imposed a 125% tariff on US goods. A Chinese airline taking delivery of a Boeing jet could be crippled by the tariffs, given that a new 737 MAX has a market value of around $55 million, according to IBA, an aviation consultancy.

It is not clear which party made the decision for the aircraft to return to the US. Boeing did not immediately respond to request for comment. Xiamen did not respond to request for comment.

The return of the 737 MAX, Boeing’s best-selling model, is the latest sign of disruption to new aircraft deliveries from a breakdown in the aerospace industry’s decades-old duty-free status.

China, led by President Xi Jinping, has responded to tariffs of its own. AP

The tariff war and apparent U-turn over deliveries comes as Boeing has been recovering from an almost five-year import freeze on 737 MAX jets and a previous round of trade tensions.

Confusion over changing tariffs could leave many aircraft deliveries in limbo, with some airline CEOs saying they would defer delivery of planes rather than pay duties, analysts say.

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After three days of global market turmoil not seen since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, stocks in Asia regained a measure of calm on Tuesday despite little let up in the escalating trade tensions caused by President Trump’s tariffs.

Before markets opened in China, the government unleashed a series of measures to stabilize stocks. In turn, share prices in Hong Kong, a day after plunging 13.2 percent, rose 1.5 percent. Benchmarks in mainland China ticked up 1 percent, recovering from big declines the day before.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225, a key benchmark in Japan, gained 5 percent, recouping a portion of the previous days losses. The uptick in sentiment followed comments made on Monday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said he would soon begin discussions with the Japanese government regarding tariffs.

The Kospi index rose in South Korea rose about 1.5 percent.

Markets around the world were unmoored last week by Mr. Trump’s announcement of broad new tariffs — a base tax of 10 percent on American imports, plus significantly higher rates on dozens of other countries. Countries have responded with tariffs of their own on U.S. goods, or with threats of retaliation. China retaliated forcefully on Friday, matching a new 34 percent tariff with one of its own on many American imports.

In the United States on Monday, the S&P 500 fell 0.2 percent after tumultuous trading that at one point pulled the benchmark into bear market territory, or a drop of 20 percent or more from its recent high. S&P futures, indicating how markets might perform when they reopen for trading on Wednesday in New York, were 1.5 percent higher.

Wall Street executives and analysts are growing increasingly worried that escalating trade tensions could do lasting damage to the global economy.

“The quicker this issue is resolved, the better because some of the negative effects increase cumulatively over time and would be hard to reverse,” Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, wrote in his annual letter to shareholders on Monday. Some bank economists are already forecasting that the economy will slip into recession later this year.

The 10.5 percent drop in the S&P 500 on Thursday and Friday was the worst two-day decline for the index since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

With the new higher-rate tariffs set to go into effect on Wednesday, Mr. Trump has remained unrelenting on his trade stance. On Monday he issued a new ultimatum to China to rescind its retaliatory tariffs on the United States, or face additional tariffs of 50 percent beginning Wednesday.

But China showed on Tuesday that it is not relenting.

Several government departments and government-owned enterprises issued statements and pledged to “maintain the smooth operation of the capital market.” And the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, vowed to support Central Huijin Investment, the arm of China’s sovereign wealth fund that said it was increasing its holdings of stock funds.

In addition, seven companies affiliated with China Merchants Group, a large corporation owned by the central government that trades in Hong Kong, said they would accelerate a plan to buy back some of its shares, a move that typically lifts stock prices.

The moves by what is known as China’s “national team” were reminiscent of efforts Beijing took during a market crisis in 2015.

At the time, the Chinese government’s efforts to shore up stock prices came after its own misjudged steps to boost and then cool prices. This time, Beijing’s intervention appears to chime with a strategy by the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, of presenting his government as a pillar of steady calm against the global economic turbulence unleashed by Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

It remains to be seen how effective Beijing’s actions will be. The meltdown in Chinese markets a decade ago was driven by a sudden loss of confidence by investors, so propping up stocks helped calm nerves, said Zhiwu Chen, a professor of finance at The University of Hong Kong.

But Mr. Trump’s tariffs could inflict damage on China’s economy. “This time, it is much deeper than just market psychology,” Mr. Chen said.

Christopher Buckley, Amy Chang Chien and River Akira Davis contributed reporting.

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