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Businesses look to capitalize on Yao-Yi showdown

The Milwaukee Bucks’ game against the Houston Rockets on Saturday will have an effect that extends far beyond the Bradley Center.

The game, which will feature two Chinese stars, Bucks rookie Yi Jianlian and Rockets veteran Yao Ming, is generating plenty of interest in the Milwaukee-area business community, given that as many as 200 million viewers are expected to watch the game on TV in China, said Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

The association’s China Business Council, which provides guidance to companies doing business or considering business relationships in China, has organized several events around the game.

On Friday, the council will sponsor a reception at Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren SC’s law office in downtown Milwaukee. The event will feature Ping Huang, consul general for the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, and Guang Yuan Liu, minister of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

The council also will hold an invitation-only lunch Saturday that will focus on doing business in China. Twenty to 25 companies have been invited to participate, Sheehy said. Yi and Yao are expected to make an appearance at the lunch.

The council also has invited business operators who conduct business in China to be guests in suites at the Bradley Center for the game.

Sheehy has visited China five times, and his most recent trip in September, soon after Yi signed a contract with the Bucks, showed how the player had created a growing awareness of Milwaukee in China.

“When I first went to China I was painfully aware that Milwaukee was just a spit in the ocean to China,” he said. “Now people in China know it as the home of the Milwaukee Bucks, where Yi plays. Will that directly help [mining equipment maker] Bucyrus sell another mining shovel in China? No, but it puts Milwaukee on the map as a big city and shows that we have enough economic prowess to play on the world’s stage.”

The matchup between the Bucks and the Rockets at the Bradley Center will mark the first time Yi and Yao will take the court together in Milwaukee. The two teams met earlier this season in Houston. An estimated 200 million people in China tuned in to the broadcast.

Rich Rovito writes for The Business Journal Serving Greater Milwaukee, an affiliated publication.

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