of course money is not the only criterion to judge. i don't know about russian league, but i don't expect america-born black nba players will feel more comfortable living in russia than in homeland, maybe it is due to the culture, but not necessarily sports culture. business is always business. with increased payroll, chinese soccer clubs now can sign brazillian national team players, who help the guangzhou hengda club already put one foot into this yr's final of asian championship league. u can belittle chinese fans 'no culture', but they are willing to pay to watch the games, buy the team jerseys and extremly expensive star-branded shoes, where the club/league's financial capability come from. chinese soccer league has top 1 averge number of audience in asia, and close to that of top 5 euro soccer leagues. i don't know what the culture is with little income and less people sitting in the stadium.Well, again, you can expect whatever you want, but the truth is quite far behind it.
Both Soccer and Basketball have a audience base because that's where they grew up on. The fact is, by saying what you just said, you have grossly misunderstood the true value why NBA and Euro League is the top League in both Soccer and Basketball.
It's NEVER about money. It NEVER about star player, it's about attitude and culture of the game. Do you know league like Russian League pays considerable sum than most NBA team paid to their player? And you don't see big gun from NBA move to Russia, that's because the culture is not right. it's like if you want to be a movie star, you go to Hollywood, if you want to be a basketball star, you go for NBA. Or you want to become a famous footballer, you go play with UEFA.
Let me tell you something, WNBA is considered the least paying league in the world, in fact, the current transfer record for any female Basketball player are from a Chinese Club buying the right with an Aussie player for USD$500,000 but do you even know if you talk about Women Basketball, US is on the top, and Australia is the FAR Second?
Don't underestimate the game mate. China is a LONG way to even be close to secondary basketball culture like Spain or Argentina, let alone the US
Last edited: