Media Figure: Last Year, Overseas Earnings of Domestic Basketball Players Were Only One Million; Combined Salaries of CBA Foreign Players Amounted to Approximately One Billion

On September 22, basketball media figure @FuZhenghaoMVP released a report related to the 2023 China Sports Service Trade Development Report.

The original text is as follows:

The number of high-level Chinese basketball players who can compete abroad is too small, leading to an even larger trade deficit in China’s basketball competition performance industry. In 2023, the income earned by domestic basketball players from foreign clubs was only 12 million yuan, while the total salary taken away by CBA foreign players for that year amounted to approximately 600 million yuan. This data comes from the 2023 China Sports Service Trade Development Report released at the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) by the Economic Department of the General Administration of Sport.

Domestic basketball players earned 1.2 million yuan overseas in 2023. It is speculated that during this statistical period, this 1.2 million yuan might have mainly come from Li Yuuru’s overseas competition.

The total salary of CBA foreign players last year was 600 million RMB. For comparison, the salaries of foreign players in the Chinese Super League (CSL) have dropped sharply to 103 million, and during the era of big-money football, the annual salary of a top foreign player in the CSL was not less than this amount.

The total salary of CBA foreign players last year was approximately 600 million yuan, averaging 30 million per team. The salary cap for CBA foreign players is 4.25 million USD, which is equivalent to about 30 million yuan. This means that some teams that hired high-salary foreign players paid luxury taxes last year, and the part exceeding the salary cap requires a regulation fee of 50% to 150%.