What Will Kobe Do After His Retirement? Can Chinese Fans See Him Again?

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NBA's two most important business cards in the past few decades.

One is the TV hegemony in the TV era, the other is the alliance spokesperson in the Internet age.

After 20 seasons, Kobe Bryant, the

The home star, the most prestigious basketball player in the world, announced that he would retire after the season.

In November 30th, he announced the decision through personal Twitter.

The friends who watch the ball do not pass the ball, they all forward his favorite farewell letter like his predecessor Michael Jordan.

Everyone is feeling and remembering the basketball superstar, though many of them may not watch basketball in their own right, or even know whether Kobe is playing a forward or a guard in the Lakers.

But this does not prevent people from knowing this great star.

In addition to the dominance of the court, Kobe has brought his influence to more places outside the field: Nike, Adidas, Sprite and Mercedes Benz advertisements, NBA games related games, basketball and his own documentary, and gossip tabloids full of sex scandals and abortion scandals.

He has his own typeface, exclusive watches and sneakers, and has signed an entertainment company in Hollywood.

Some time ago, he even appeared in the propaganda video of the football game FIFA 16 - together with Messi.

He is more than a basketball superstar.

In a sense, he is a brand of NBA and many related industries, and is a real star after Michael Jordan.

It seems quite natural to compare Kobe with Jordan, and it will naturally arouse fans' quarrels, such as who is more great than Kobe or Jordan, or is Kobe the nearest person to Jordan?

There is no doubt that Jordan is the greatest basketball player.

He led the Bulls six times to win the championship, dominated the entire 90 era NBA, physical fitness, defensive, backward jump shot and kill, the basketball player is beyond the imagination of that era.

What is more important is his contribution to basketball - his contribution to NBA may be more than that of NBA.

Since 1991, more than 1/3 of the highest NBA finals have been attributed to Jordan's appearance.

When Jordan went to play professional baseball, NBA's ratings declined.

In the finals of 1998, it was also rumored that Jordan will retire in the final finals. The audience rating reached 19.8%, so far the record has not yet been broken.

People all over the world eagerly anticipate the flying trapeze figure in front of the TV set.

And in the advertising time between the venues, he endorsed the sports brand and drink in turn.

After the 1992 years of the Barcelona Olympic Games, Jordan's personal charm made the world known to the world that NBA, a native of the United States, was the most loved one than the League of rugby and hockey.

He also created an economic effect: the value of the NBA related industry was added to $44 million in 1983 before Jordan joined the NBA, and the number was 2 billion 610 million when he first retired from the year of 1998.

In 1998, Forbes wrote articles to analyze the noun they created.

The Jordan Effect, and estimated that Jordan created a value of $10 billion alone.

None of Kobe can do that.

In the era of Kobe, NBA has gradually become a mature business, not a person's popularity can be leveraged.

However, after Michael Jordan, NBA and her associated businessmen need a successor to take over the old age and eventually really retire Michael Jordan, representing the whole NBA and so many sports brand images in the new era.

Kobe is suitable for such a role.

His excellent skill has made everyone remember the boy who had never been optimistic.

Since 2000, he combined with O'neal has won three NBA champion for the Lakers.

After O'neal's "East tour" in Miami, he led the Lakers to two other champions.

Kobe's scoring ability is the most powerful weapon of the Lakers.

In January 22, 2006, he scored 55 points in the match with raptors, 81 points in a single game, second only to Chamberlain, who scored 100 points.

The Losangeles Lakers are lucky. They have the best basketball players. In addition to their achievements, Kobe has brought huge profits to the Lakers.

After having Kobe, the Lakers have always been one of the top teams with ticket prices and team values.

In the 2014 to 2015 season, the average price of the Lakers was 102.5 dollars, almost two times the average ticket price of the whole NBA team, only behind Nicks.

At the same time, Forbes's most valuable team in the 2014~ 2015 season was the Lakers who ranked first in the 2 billion 600 million U.S. dollar (although the Lakers were 21 ranked 61 worst in the season).

After Kobe joined the Lakers, the market value of the Lakers basically remained in the top three of the league.

In the Internet age, Kobe has the characteristics of personal heroism, making him easily become an idol from a basketball player.

There are 794 fans on his Twitter, and 4 million 500 thousand on Instagram.

This is not what his predecessor Jordan did. (Jordan didn't even have the accounts of these two social networking sites).

The latest farewell declaration, in 22 hours, has gained 12 tens of thousands of forwarding and 100 thousand praise.

People no longer watch TV but watch the idol on computer screen.

Fans not only watch his game, but also his personal life, his manifesto.

There are also advertisements. In the video content of 3 million 350 thousand Kobe related YouTube, the most widely used is the advertisement of Turkey airlines, which is co operated by Kobe and Messi, with more than 110 million hits.

It's not hard to understand why so many advertisers are around Kobe.

Although Kobe lost nearly all advertising business after the sex scandal in 2003, all the advertisers came back after he won the NBA championship again.

Nike is naturally the most enthusiastic one.

In 2014 alone, Nike's Kobe signed shoes sold more than 1.05 US $100 billion in the US, more than double the number of last year - which is Kobe's absence from most of the season.

Of course, Nike is also trying to build this brand star.

In the past 14 years, Kobe has come to China 12 times. Most of them have the shadow of Nike.

Nike hopes that the NBA player will help them better open the Chinese market.

NBA also wants Kobe's travels to develop and consolidate the influence of NBA in the hearts of local fans, especially for China with a population of 14 billion.

In China, Kobe is the most popular idol.

His popularity is not only that you throw out a topic about Kobe anywhere, but you will attract a lot of controversy between kohmi and Kohn, and Kobe's shirt has always been the best seller in China.

The former brings fame to NBA, and the latter brings income to NBA.

Excellent personal skills, team spirit and support from numerous sponsors and alliances.

This made Kobe one of the most profitable NBA members.

He was once the most paid player in the league, and his salary accumulated over 20 dollars in the past 330 million years.

Plus his endorsement income of 350 million yuan, his whole career brought him more than 680 million dollars in income.

However, in terms of overall earning power, Kobe may still be inferior to his predecessor, Jordan.

Jordan, who owns free brand shoes, earned more than 1 billion dollars last year in light ball shoes, which exceeded the annual income of all basketball players in active service, including Kobe.

In March this year, Jordan entered the Forbes billionaire list for the first time at $1 billion.

After retiring, can Kobe continue to make money like Jordan did? Kobe did not have his own shoes brand as Jordan did. After leaving the court, Nike was more likely not to spend more energy on the veteran, but to let the rising rookie become a new representative, such as James.

Durant.

For fans, Kobe is different from Kobe; but for businessmen, Kobe is a replaceable symbol.

I would not be surprised if Kobe earned money by giving lectures, attending training camps, setting up his own brand and even shooting films and biographies after retirement.

In fact, he has already begun to do so.

In the 2013 year of the year, Kobe set up a company named after his own name. At the end of May this year, Kobe signed a WME, a famous brokerage company in Hollywood, to pave the way for his retirement.

The company's clients include Lebron James and Li Na, making films, restaurants and all kinds of brands for these former athletes.

He will also work with Sina and Ali to operate Kobe brand. The Chinese market will always be a tempting place.

Maybe Chinese fans can see Kobe more.

In this way, his retirement seems to be less sad.