Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak attended his first NBA game as a teenager in Boston and saw his beloved Los Angeles Lakers play their bitter rivals at the arena then known as the FleetCenter.

He and his brother Khaldoon, then a student at Tufts University, reached their seats and found themselves next to an older couple.

“They must have both been in their 80s. And I looked at them and said, ‘Wow, it’s amazing how much these guys love this sport,'” Mubarak said. “I smiled briefly, expecting to smile back. And they looked at my Laker shirt and took my clothes off. And I said, ‘Well, this is my welcome moment to Boston.'”

It didn’t dampen Mubarak’s love for the NBA. He later attended Northeastern University in Boston and battled the Celtics throughout.

Now officially known as “His Excellency,” he has been chairman of Abu Dhabi’s powerful Department of Culture and Tourism since 2016. And he is a driving force behind this week’s high-profile preseason games in the United Arab Emirates, involving the Celtics and Denver Nuggets, the last two NBA champions.

The games are a centerpiece of the league’s deepening ties with power brokers in the Middle East. Since the NBA returned to normal operations following the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, growth in the Arabian Peninsula has largely replaced China as the NBA’s main international focus.

A number of factors, many of which are beyond the NBA’s control, have caused the league’s decades-long effort to tap the Chinese market to wane. The fallout from then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s 2019 Hong Kong tweet resulted in NBA games not being televised in China for 18 months. In the NBA, more than ten Chinese sponsors paused or canceled their contracts. The NBA also closed its three academies in China.

Although the Morey incident attracted widespread attention, it was only a small part of a much larger set of challenges between China and the United States, which included a trend for China to move away somewhat from its long-standing embrace of Western culture, a poll said According to One of China’s official media outlets, earlier this year found that 54.6% of young people in the country look down on Western countries. The NBA was not immune. The league has not played preseason games in China since 2019, once a cornerstone of its international strategy. In 2022, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that the league’s financial losses due to the China rift had cost “hundreds of millions” in revenue.

Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets and co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, said earlier this year that relations between China and the NBA had improved and he was confident games would resume soon. But for now the preparatory games will remain in Abu Dhabi and large amounts of sponsorship money will continue to flow from the United Arab Emirates.

The Middle East market’s population is a tiny fraction of that of China, where the NBA maintains a huge fan base, but is outsized in terms of its potential as a business partner. Abu Dhabi’s population is roughly the same as the state of New Jersey, but three of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds are based there, including the behemoth Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which manages nearly $1 trillion. That’s helped Silver embrace the region, even though the country isn’t currently viewed as a potential producer of NBA talent like China is.

This weekend’s Celtics-Nuggets games are the biggest the NBA has ever played, at the Etihad Arena on Yas Island, part of a glittering sports and entertainment complex with amusement parks, a golf course that hosts DP World Tour golf -Playoff event takes place, and a race track where the Formula 1 season reaches its climax every year.

Over the past three years, Abu Dhabi has hosted six NBA preseason games and four Team USA exhibition games. The crowd is large and diverse, consisting largely of expats and tourists. In July, a record crowd of more than 12,000 fans attended a Team USA exhibition game against Australia. Thousands lined up in the midsummer heat to watch Americans warm up. As part of a long-term contract signed in 2021, the NBA is planning further preparatory games in Abu Dhabi in the future.

Earlier this year, the NBA signed a major sponsorship deal with Emirates Airline, based less than 100 miles off the E11 highway in Dubai. The NBA Cup, the seasonal tournament, will bear the brand’s name. It is part of a broader investment by Dubai’s ruling family in professional basketball, including the recent purchase of a EuroLeague team that could eventually play its home games in the United Arab Emirates.

Last year, the Qatar Investment Authority became the first sovereign wealth fund to take a stake in an NBA team when it acquired about 5% of the parent company of the Washington Wizards.

Experience Abu Dhabi, the marketing arm of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, has already signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with the Celtics and is in talks to become a sponsor of the New York Knicks’ jersey patch, sources said.

As the league expands its ties with Abu Dhabi, Human Rights Watch – an independent non-governmental organization – has accused the UAE of using sport to distract from its human rights record, citing in particular the country’s zero-tolerance policy towards dissent and its failure to protect migrant workers in a criticism of the NBA’s decision to play preseason games in Abu Dhabi. The NBA previously faced similar criticism over its ties with China and was criticized by two U.S. senators over a partnership with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the Basketball Africa League.

“I hear the comments about sports washing,” Silver said in an interview on “The Dan Patrick Show” last year, referring to the Middle East’s investment in American sports. “On the other hand, you talk about it, others talk about it. Just like the World Cup brought a lot of attention to Qatar, I think people are learning about these countries and what’s happening in the world in some ways.” Otherwise they wouldn’t do it. So I think the media is doing its job.

“When we talk specifically about the NBA, we are a global sport,” Silver continued. “I think people these days are a bit dismissive of the benefits that come from the community around sport. That in a sport like basketball, our finals take place virtually everywhere in the world and the sport is played everywhere in the world. That’s right.” an opportunity to bring people together.

In addition to premier golf, racing and tennis events, Mubarak has secured a number of contracts with the UFC over the past decade and now hosts two events there each year. Jiujitsu is the national sport of the United Arab Emirates, taught to all school children by assignment, and mixed martial arts fighting is very popular. Mubarak wants basketball to follow in those footsteps. Since signing the deal with the NBA in 2021, basketball participation in the country has increased by 60%.

No longer being turned away at Celtics games with his brother, Khaldoon Al Mubarak is now the founding chairman of the state-backed City Football Group, which includes 13 soccer teams including Premier League giants Manchester City and MLS team New York City FC. Khaldoon is on the board of Mubadala Investment Company, a separate sovereign wealth fund with more than $300 billion in assets.

Mohammed Al Mubarak has made it no secret that he would like to eventually add a majority stake in an NBA team to the Emirates portfolio.

“Absolutely. Why not? I think we have shown what this means for us when we invest in sport: a long-term approach that builds the capabilities of this city,” Mubarak said.

“I think City Group has done a fantastic job, not just in Manchester itself but across the spectrum of its investments, in creating both hard and soft infrastructure, creating a talent pool through its academies. So is that (with the NBA) something we’d like to explore? Absolutely, but I think it’s a matter of finding the right opportunity and the right framework to work with the NBA on this.

This even includes interest in Mubarak’s rival Celtics, who are currently up for sale and expected to fetch a record price. But the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will not acquire a majority stake in the Celtics or any other NBA team in the near future. The league currently limits sovereign wealth funds to passive stakes in teams no greater than 20%, and there are currently no discussions or plans to change that rule, league officials said.

“I don’t want to say what could ever happen, but right now there are no considerations,” Silver said last year, a position that has not changed.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi will continue to invest in basketball while bringing major events to the country. The NBA will continue to be a part of this and benefit from the country’s investment as more money flows into the league each fall through partnerships and sponsorships, as well as sending teams.

“We are thinking long-term,” said Mubarak. “I don’t think there will be an Emirati basketball player playing in the NBA tomorrow, but the fact is that today the light can be seen in the eyes of the youth… maybe not this group, maybe the group after them or the group after them, but at some point there will be one or two players who make it to the NCAA and then maybe go one step further. Once that happens, the dream becomes reality.