Chinese media company Tencent and the NBA entered into an exclusive streaming contract in 2015, changing the Chinese NBA market. Tencent operates one of the most popular websites in China, and owns Wechat and QQ, which are among the most popular chat applications and software in China. By cooperating with Tencent, the NBA was able to offer a better experience and variety of content to Chinese NBA fans. In addition, the NBA could deliver content to a wide-ranging audience, due to Tencent's broad user base.

However, this exclusive contract had a profound influence among Chinese NBA fans. In the past, viewers could only watch 1-2 live-stream NBA games. After the Tencent-NBA agreement, they could watch almost every NBA game. With a wide variety of choices came also the need to pay for the service. The era of free NBA games was gone, and in its place a new free-premium hybrid business model that offered free and paid content at the same time; if there were 10 basketball games on one day, they would live-stream two free games and the remaining 8 games were charged. This new business model began a new era for NBA viewers in China.