A basketball court in Taipan, China (2024) | Gil Hizi

The driver of bus number 25 knew where I was heading the moment I stepped inside. Although he met few foreigners during his three years on this line (as he later told me), he assumed that I could only be heading to the “NBA village” of Taipan in the Guizhou province. The bus route starts in the south of Kaili, a city of approximately one million residents, and then continues some 20 miles east, stopping between villages before reaching its final destination. Official road signs along the route have embraced the basketball fever, replacing “Taipan” with “村BA” (a wordplay of cun-ba, aka “NBA village”).   

“Village NBA” is a colloquial term that has recently developed into the official title of basketball leagues in rural areas of China. It is more than a gimmick or marginal phenomenon in China: in the last three years, it has become a nationwide craze that attracts dozens of millions of viewers of online streams—in addition to 20,000 courtside fans, both locals and tourists. Last year, the competition hosted its first active NBA star, Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat, along with numerous local celebrities. The competition frequently features in the Chinese press and has also appeared briefly in a few Western newspapers. The shared narrative in these reports is the so-called triumph of grassroots heroism, shining a fairytale-like spotlight on one of the most impoverished regions in China.

This narrative is also visible on the walls of the village, looming large in billboards, mascot images, written introductions, graffiti, and competition photography. Visitors entering Taipan from the main road will see these visuals juxtaposed alongside the village wet market, vegetable plots, and small restaurants. The local government had installed a huge poster of Jimmy Butler giving a speech on Taipan’s main court on the wall above a noodle shop whose owner admits to having no idea who the player is. Elsewhere, I saw an old woman receiving roadside tooth surgery  in front of a poster offering a bird’s-eye view of the bustling stadium during the final game in the summer of 2023. Half a mile downhill, a long red banner (indicating a state-affiliated message) on a residence building states, in a message that both includes and excludes half its readers: “Basketball is the passion of boys, “village NBA” is the love of the entire population.”

It remains somewhat of a mystery how Taipan, a village of slightly over 1,000 residents, became, almost overnight, the mecca of village basketball in China. It is located in an area primarily inhabited by the Miao ethnic minority, with the larger Miao-Dong Autonomous Region in the southern province of Guizhou. Although Taipan had a small basketball court dating back to the 1930s, where local games were part of the activities to celebrate summer harvest, this does not explain the current hype. (A basketball court is a common sight in Chinese villages.) People I spoke with in Taipan and Kaili ascribed the boom to the village’s handy location (relatively close to Kaili, the biggest city in the area, and not as mountainous as other villages), the unexpected popularity of videos of local basketball games on social media platforms, the efficient work of the village committee, and its fruitful relationship with the local county government. One teacher in Kaili even pointed to the fact that, relative to the area dominated by the Miao minority, Taipan has many Han residents (the dominant ethnic groups in China), thus allowing more state control and penetration of personnel outside this region. 

Whatever the precise combination of factors is, this basketball experiment has succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination, taking off swiftly after the new Taipan stadium was erected in 2022. All the games of the competition, which include teams from villages and towns of the region, take place in Taipan during spring and summer. Entry is free of charge, though visitors must register in advance. During the opening ceremony and final stages, the stadium is packed, forcing many fans to move outside and watch the event on a wide-screen monitor in a nearby field. The games themselves are supplemented with speeches, singing, and Miao dance performances before and between the actual play. In addition, a big marketplace has been built in the upper entrance to the stadium, with established, licensed stands selling food and merchandise. 

“Village NBA” has transformed Taipan. The 60- and 74-year-old Yu sisters, who are part-time farmers and merchants, were excited to speak with me about the games. “Taipan has always had basketball games,” they told me. “Our friends played when even we were kids; you can see some remains of the old court behind there.” When asked about their interaction with the competition itself, the older sister said that they enjoy the atmosphere but usually watch the games online with their family, if they watch them at all. As I tried to grasp the impact of the games on local life and economy, the sisters gave the same response that I heard from two restaurant owners: “It brings money to the new market stands outside the stadium, but it doesn’t much affect the business in the rest of the village.” 

Herein lies the dilemma of “village NBA.” The event is presented as a grassroots initiative whose spontaneous growth has been an economic boost for Taipan and, to some degree, the entire region. It is celebrated as a “pure” competition, in which passion overrides commerce, and comradery eradicates corruption. This is the narrative that appears on Chinese social media and the state-run press, framing basketball as a window into local ethnic culture and a means for its resilience. At the same time, like many projects in China, the level of control by local officials and law enforcement has shaped the management of competition and the commerce around it, directing visitors to designated businesses and limiting unmediated encounters. When I entered the stadium during an off day of the tournament, I was immediately approached by an officer who asked about my intentions ( while one of his peers took photos of me with his phone. He then allowed me to continue my stroll. While maintaining a symbolic sense of purity through free entry, the competition has found plenty of commercial stakes to introduce to the game: tourism, celebrity appearances, broadcasting rights, and advertising. Meanwhile, most Taipan residents continue to work in local agriculture and do not fully understand how this basketball frenzy is supposed to change their livelihood.

The popularity of basketball in China is unquestionable. Among the sports widely played in China, ping-pong is the most successful in international competitions, but basketball rules when it comes to passionate fandom and intense amateur leagues. It is a coming-of-age activity for many young men. In Taipan, we find a derivative of basketball fandom that is an antithesis to professional basketball, considering the voluntary play and the outdoor courts. The rural setting, team identities, and ethnic performances make it also starkly different in style from amateur urban basketball. But this seeming innocence is also part of a spectacle that mixes traditional village life and fantasies of stardom—as conveyed by the oxymoron of “village-NBA.”

In China, as elsewhere, professional sports have come to exemplify relentless consumption and deified individualism (even within a team sport—see the advent of bidding wars over players), , but it is also, as “village NBA” shows us, a realm of moral deliberation. It is a set of activities in which organizers, viewers, and local residents celebrate a seemingly grassroots initiative that brings into symbiosis tradition and development, as well as individual skill and collective belonging. This idealization appears in posters, online commentary, news reports, and statements by local officials. Thus “village NBA” is an event where participants bring to the fore their social concerns and envision alternatives, even if, in reality, its success also brings about new forms of lament and inequality.  

The success of “village NBA” has spurred the organization of many new basketball competitions in rural China. Taipan remains the most popular site in terms of national exposure, and now hosts  inter-provincial rural competitions. The village teams, spectators, online viewers, and state agencies manage to collaborate successfully in this theatre of rural culture and sports, while the so-called pure and immaterialist agenda leaves villagers both proud and uneasy.