When Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, tweeted just over a week ago in support of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, little could he have expected that his seven-word message might become the most expensive tweet in the history of the business of sport.
The backlash has been swift, with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV canceling plans to show National Basketball Association preseason games being played in China and more than a dozen Chinese corporate partners of the Rockets or the league suspending ties.
