Lifestyle

NBA Stars Like Jalen Brunson Enlist Social Media Surrogates to Expand Reach in China

Published

10 months ago

March 12, 2025

NBA Stars Like Jalen Brunson Enlist Social Media Surrogates to Expand Reach in China

Jalen Brunson first experienced the fervor of the N.B.A.’s biggest international market in 2018 when, as a rookie, he traveled with the Dallas Mavericks to China for a pair of preseason games. The trip itself was brief, but the reception that Mr. Brunson and his teammates received left a lasting impression.

“The fandom that basketball brought to that country, I thought it was really cool and interesting and something I wanted to be a part of,” Mr. Brunson said in a recent interview.

Now a star for the New York Knicks, Mr. Brunson, 28, took a crucial step toward that goal before the current N.B.A. season when his representatives at Creative Arts Agency enlisted a digital management company, East Goes Global, to create and run Chinese social media accounts for him. In the months since, Mr. Brunson has gained more than 400,000 followers across five of the country’s major apps: Bilibili, Douyin, RedNote, Weibo and WeChat.

Mr. Brunson is one of several N.B.A. players looking to establish an online presence in China, where millions of people follow the league closely. But given the language barrier and differing societal norms and trends — not to mention an insular Chinese internet where popular western platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and X are blocked and content is reviewed by the government — most have sought help from companies with specific expertise in navigating the digital landscape.

“I think it’s important to understand your audience, and I think a lot of smart people understand what they know and what they don’t know,” Mr. Brunson said. “It was key for me to let someone else do it, because they understand more than me. Even though I am the face of it, they really run it.”

Founded in 2018 by Andrew Spalter, a former music manager who lives in Austin, Texas, East Goes Global is not alone in providing such a service. Coral Lu, a former ESPN reporter, handles the Chinese social media accounts for Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers and Paul George of the Philadelphia 76ers. The IMG-owned company Mailman, based in Shanghai, manages 30 accounts for 14 active players.

“For the player, some people are really motivated by engaging with their global audience, and in cultures where basketball is huge,” said Matthew Spalter, the chief operating officer of East Goes Global, who is Andrew’s brother. “There’s also the business perspective: ‘During my basketball career, how can I scale my business? And, post-career, how can I make sure I’m not gone forever?’”

The player-led push is coming at an important time for relations between the N.B.A. and China. In October 2019, a year after Mr. Brunson’s trip, a pro-Hong Kong social media post from Daryl Morey, then the general manager of the Houston Rockets, led to China pulling N.B.A. games off national television and ending the N.B.A. China Games, which had been played annually since 2012.

The freeze from Mr. Morey’s post, however, has significantly thawed, and the league is planning to play two exhibition games next October in the Chinese territory of Macau. With help from groups like East Goes Global, some players will be ahead of others should the relationship between the league and China return to its previous heights.

The work of the groups typically begins by reaching out to the various platforms to verify the player’s accounts — and often, as with Mr. Brunson, creating them in the first place. But further measures can be required, as when the team at Mailman helped an N.B.A. All-Star client recover his page on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok, after it had been taken over by a mysterious third party that was posting spam content.

Next comes the process of creating content for a Chinese audience. Success, according to the people involved, goes beyond simply using the native language in captions and adding trending background music.

“Mirroring the same content on your Chinese channels as your western ones really isn’t diving deeper into that Chinese culture,” said Michael Lin, a vice president of digital at Mailman who oversees its U.S. sports operation. “Athletes do a lot better when they’re creating personalized content that’s speaking to the Chinese fans.”

For Mr. Brunson, this has meant meeting periodically with East Goes Global staff members to film exclusive videos for his Chinese accounts, including a marathon two-hour session heading into last month’s Chinese New Year during which he sampled Chinese snacks and wrote his name in Chinese characters.

“I thought that was really cool,” he said.

There are numerous business possibilities for N.B.A. players in China. Some have gone on huge tours across the country. Others have signed endorsement deals with Chinese shoe companies. James Harden, a star for the Clippers, sold 10,000 bottles of wine in five seconds during a Douyin livestream.

But Mr. Lin has noticed a particular uptick in requests from players who cite another source of motivation: getting fan votes for the All-Star Game.

The ideal playbook, in that regard, was laid out last season, when Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers rode a wave of Chinese social media support to lead Eastern Conference guards in fan voting, earning a surprising spot as a starter for the 2024 All-Star Game.

“I know people see a player in Indiana and don’t expect that,” Mr. Haliburton said at the media day for that game, “but the love I’ve received from my fans in China has been amazing.”

According to Matthew Spalter, Mr. Brunson’s team at C.A.A. similarly approached East Goes Global about executing a “massive All-Star push” for this year’s game. The results? Even though Mr. Brunson finished third among Eastern Conference guards on fan ballots, he was named a starter under the league’s weighted voting formula, which also incorporated votes from the news media and the players.

“I think it helped a lot, and I’m really appreciative of it,” Mr. Brunson said in February of the help from Chinese fans, adding that he planned to post a message of gratitude after the All-Star break.

Sure enough, a week or so later, a 44-second video was uploaded to Mr. Brunson’s account on Bilibili, China’s equivalent of YouTube. The video features behind-the-scenes footage from his trip to the game in San Francisco.

“Thanks to my friends at Bilibili for voting and supporting me,” the caption read — in Chinese characters, of course.

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Lifestyle

Sunday Puzzle: New newsmakers of 2025

Published

8 hours ago

January 4, 2026

Press Room

On-air challenge

Every year around this time I present a “new names in the news” quiz. I’m going to give you some names that you’d probably never heard before 2025 but that were prominent in the news during the past 12 months. You tell me who or what they are.

1. Zohran Mamdani

2. Karoline Leavitt

3. Mark Carney

4. Robert Francis Prevost (hint: Chicago)

5. Jeffrey Goldberg (hint: The Atlantic)

6. Sanae Takaichi

7. Nameless raccoon, Hanover County, Virginia

Last week’s challenge

Last week’s challenge came from Joseph Young, of St. Cloud, Minn. Think of a two-syllable word in four letters. Add two letters in front and one letter behind to make a one-syllable word in seven letters. What words are these?

Challenge answer

Ague –> Plagued / Plagues / Leagues

Winner

Calvin Siemer of Henderson, Nev.

This week’s challenge

This week’s challenge is a numerical one from Ed Pegg Jr., who runs the website mathpuzzle.com. Take the nine digits — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. You can group some of them and add arithmetic operations to get 2011 like this: 1 + 23 ÷ 4 x 5 x 67 – 8 + 9. If you do these operations in order from left to right, you get 2011. Well, 2011 was 15 years ago. Can you group some of the digits and add arithmetic symbols in a different way to make 2026? The digits from 1 to 9 need to stay in that order. I know of two different solutions, but you need to find only one of them.

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it below by Thursday, January 8 at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle.

Lifestyle

Daniel Tosh Sells Lake Tahoe Estate for $10.75 Million

Published

9 hours ago

January 4, 2026

Press Room

Daniel Tosh Sells Lake Tahoe Estate for .75 Million

Daniel Tosh
Sells Lake Tahoe Home for Millions

Published
January 4, 2026
8:41 AM PST

Daniel Tosh has officially sold his sprawling Lake Tahoe compound but the comedian isn’t leaving the area … TMZ has learned.

Real estate sources tell us the 7-bedroom, 7-bath estate officially closed Friday for $10.75 million, and Tosh bought another property across the lake to be closer to friends, which is why he decided to sell.

The gated estate, located on the pristine west shore between Tahoe City and Sunnyside, sprawls across 1.6 acres and features three distinct homes, each with its own character and charm.

The Upper House is the ultimate entertainer’s dream … 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, elevator, game room, industrial ice cream maker, 4-car garage, hot tub, fire pit, bocce and horseshoe pits, and sprawling lawns with breathtaking lake views.

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The Middle House keeps classic Tahoe charm alive with knotty pine interiors, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a stone fireplace, skylit kitchen, and steam shower — perfect for unwinding after a day on the lake.

The lakeside cabin is a serene retreat with a studio loft, retro kitchenette, modern bathroom, and French doors opening right onto the lake.

daniel-tosh-Vista-Estate-Visuals-Scott-Thompson-4

Altogether, the property boasts 93 feet of lake frontage, two buoys, and multiple outdoor spaces for fun and relaxation.

Daniel may be moving, but one thing’s clear … he’s still very much a Lake Tahoe guy, just on the other side of the lake now.

Lifestyle

What worked — and what didn’t — in the ‘Stranger Things’ finale

Published

20 hours ago

January 4, 2026

Press Room

What worked — and what didn’t — in the ‘Stranger Things’ finale

Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield.

Netflix

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Netflix

Yes, there are spoilers ahead for the final episode of Stranger Things.

On New Year’s Eve, the very popular Netflix show Stranger Things came to an end after five seasons and almost 10 years. With actors who started as tweens now in their 20s, it was probably inevitable that the tale of a bunch of kids who fought monsters would wind down. In the two-plus-hour finale, there was a lot of preparation, then there was a final battle, and then there was a roughly 40-minute epilogue catching up with our heroes 18 months later. And how well did it all work? Let’s talk about it.

Worked: The final battle

The strongest part of the finale was the battle itself, set in the Abyss, in which the crew battled Vecna, who was inside the Mind Flayer, which is, roughly speaking, a giant spider. This meant that inside, Eleven could go one-on-one with Vecna (also known as Henry, or One, or Mr. Whatsit) while outside, her friends used their flamethrowers and guns and flares and slingshots and whatnot to take down the Mind Flayer. (You could tell that Nancy was going to be the badass of the fight as soon as you saw not only her big gun, but also her hair, which strongly evoked Ripley in the Alien movies.) And of course, Joyce took off Vecna’s head with an axe while everybody remembered all the people Vecna has killed who they cared about. Pretty good fight!

Did not work: Too much talking before the fight

As the group prepared to fight Vecna, we watched one scene where the music swelled as Hopper poured out his feelings to Eleven about how she deserved to live and shouldn’t sacrifice herself. Roughly 15 minutes later, the music swelled for a very similarly blocked and shot scene in which Eleven poured out her feelings to Hopper about why she wanted to sacrifice herself. Generally, two monologues are less interesting than a conversation would be. Elsewhere, Jonathan and Steve had a talk that didn’t add much, and Will and Mike had a talk that didn’t add much (after Will’s coming-out scene in the previous episode), both while preparing to fight a giant monster. It’s not that there’s a right or wrong length for a finale like this, but telling us things we already know tends to slow down the action for no reason. Not every dynamic needed a button on it.

Worked: Dungeons & Dragons bringing the group together

It was perhaps inevitable that we would end with a game of D&D, just as we began. But now, these kids are feeling the distance between who they are now and who they were when they used to play together. The fact that they still enjoy each other’s company so much, even when there are no world-shattering stakes, is what makes them seem the most at peace, more than a celebratory graduation. And passing the game off to Holly and her friends, including the now-included Derek, was a very nice touch.

Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley, and Joe Keery as Steve Harrington.

Netflix

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Netflix

Did not work: Dr. Kay, played by Linda Hamilton

It seemed very exciting that Stranger Things was going to have Linda Hamilton, actual ’80s action icon, on hand this season playing Dr. Kay, the evil military scientist who wanted to capture and kill Eleven at any cost. But she got very little to do, and the resolution to her story was baffling. After the final battle, after the Upside Down is destroyed, she believes Eleven to be dead. But … then what happened? She let them all call taxis home, including Hopper, who killed a whole bunch of soldiers? Including all the kids who now know all about her and everything she did? All the kids who ventured into the Abyss are going to be left alone? Perfect logic is certainly not anybody’s expectation, but when you end a sequence with your entire group of heroes at the mercy of a band of violent goons, it would be nice to say something about how they ended up not at the mercy of said goons.

The first batch of episodes in Stranger Things' final season are out on Wednesday. Above: Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, and Noah Schnapp as Will Byers.

This computer illustration shows an Einstein-Rosen bridge, also known as a wormhole. Wormholes feature heavily in the fifth season of Netflix series Stranger Things, whose series finale airs Dec. 31.

Worked: Needle drops

Listen, it’s not easy to get one Prince song for your show, let alone two: “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry.” When the Duffer Brothers say they needed something epic, and these songs feel epic, they are not wrong. There continues to be a heft to the Purple Rain album that helps to lend some heft to a story like this, particularly given the period setting. “Landslide” was a little cheesy as the lead-in to the epilogue, but … the epilogue was honestly pretty cheesy, so perhaps that’s appropriate.

Did not work: The non-ending

As to whether Eleven really died or is really just backpacking in a foreign country where no one can find her, the Duffer Brothers, who created the show, have been very clear that the ending is left up to you. You can think she’s dead, or you can think she’s alive; they have intentionally not given the answer. It’s possible to write ambiguous endings that work really well, but this one felt like a cop-out, an attempt to have it both ways. There’s also a real danger in expanding characters’ supernatural powers to the point where they can make anything seem like anything, so maybe much of what you saw never happened. After all, if you don’t know that did happen, how much else might not have happened?

This piece also appears in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.

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