If there’s one Chinese television channel today that downplayed Jeremy Lin’s performance in their NBA coverage, that’s CCTV5, the national sports broadcaster. In the channel’s daily sports news broadcast, all the attention was on Kevin Durant and Jeremy got only a small mention as he led the Knicks into another great victory over the Dallas Mavericks.

I’m fine with Durant, who played a great game. But it’s a bit odd as Jeremy got only a one-liner when he’s on the spotlight everywhere else in Chinese media. Usually what CCTV would do is like what the Netease did in the picture below:putting Jeremy and Yi together. But unfortunately Yi was benched the whole time.

Jeremy Lin and Yi Jianlian Met Before Their Game

I have no idea what have gotten into their minds but it looked like while other Chinese media was caught by the Linsanity all the way from New York, CCTV intentionally restricted Lin’s coverage tonight. As discussed in my article for Foreign Policy here, there’s some identity balancing work required of Jeremy if he wants to score big in China commercially. The same for CCTV and other news agencies, not commercial-wise but to be politically correct.

When a Xinhua analysis came out a few days ago which advised Jeremy to play for China, netizens made a lot of fun of the piece. To these Chinese sports fans, his nationality just doesn’t matter. It looks they’ll keep on supporting him no matter what. Jeremy’s popularity grows so fast that Taobao, the most popular e-commerce site in China, now has his counterfeit jerseys on sale all over the place.

The CCTV currently airs two NBA games a week, and avid followers resort to streaming games on the Internet when they’re not featured on TV. It just doesn’t make sense to restrict his coverage like this. What they should be doing is reaching a new broadcasting plan with the NBA and giving the fans more Knicks games.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into this.

Photo: Netease

Update: From the Economist’s Banyan blog:

Mr Lin’s Taiwanese family background seems to pose a special problem. China Central Television (CCTV), the national monopoly that broadcasts NBA games, has not joined in Linsanity. A game featuring Mr Lin a week ago, against the Minnesota Timberwolves, was broadcast on Beijing TV’s sport channel, but the broadcast included the forbidden image of the Taiwanese national flag, held proudly by fans in the stands. (The flag is typically blurred in China if it must appear in news footage). Chinese netizens noticed, and wondered if that would bring a punishment, or a tape delay. CCTV, for its part, told Netease, a Chinese internet portal, that most Knicks games couldn’t be shown due to the “time difference”, “but if time allows, games of the Knicks will definitely be broadcasted preferentially.”