If you were in Shenyang in April 2018 (and not hiding under a rock somewhere), you must be aware that the Liaoning Basketball team won the CBA (that’s the Chinese Basketball Association to the uninitiated) this year. I still remember how, on April 22nd, my WeChat Moments exploded with posts about the final game, then the win of the Liaoning Flying Leopards. It seems like ever since then, Liaoning’s love of basketball has kept on soaring.
The CBA – What’s That?
The CBA is the first-tier professional men’s basketball league in China. Many believe the CBA to be the dominant league in all of Asia. So basically, they are a pretty big deal in the basketball world.
What’s interesting about the CBA teams is that their names are made up of a geographic destination, then their corporate sponsor, and then a nickname (like an animal). The deal with the sponsor names can lead to a lot of confusion, as sponsors can and often will change from year to year, and sometimes even mid-season.
And even the nicknames can change. In the case of our own Liaoning Team, this meant that they changed from being Hunters, to Dinosaurs, before finally settling on Flying Leopards.
To make the confusion complete, most basketball fans here will not refer to the team by any of the nicknames or their sponsor name. In Shenyang, the Liaoning Flying Leopards are mostly just affectionately known as 辽篮 (liáolán in pinyin, short for Liaoning Basketball).
The New Basketball Season
No matter which name you call them, they are about to start a new season. Soon. And, because all information I have found on the new season tickets of our reigning CBA champions has been in Chinese, I have decided to translate what I have into English for you. This way, us foreigners also have a chance to experience the excitement on the court first-hand.
So here goes:
The new basketball season starts on October 21st for the Liaoning Flying Leopards, with a home game against the Shandong Golden Stars. All home games are happening in Shenyang, at Liaoning Stadium.
The stadium is located south of the river, the closest metro station is Olympic Stadium.
The Games
There are a total of 20 teams in the CBA, so the Flying Leopards will be competing with 19 other teams over the course of the season. For an overview of their schedule, refer to the table below:
Seat Categories and Tickets
If you are a die-hard basketball fan, you will of course want a season pass to see all of the Flying Leopards’ feats on the court first-hand. So, let’s have a look at the different seat categories first. This is the distribution of seats according to categories.
And this is the overview of the prices of season passes for the different seat categories.
If you are only interested in watching one or two games, maybe the table below will be more to your liking. Find the prices for individual tickets to the home games there.
5 games are ‘special’ ones that cost more. They are the games against the Nanjing Monkey Kings, against the Guangdong Southern Tigers, against the Xinjiang Flying Tigers, against the Shandong Golden Stars and against the Beijing Ducks.
All tickets can be purchased through the app 大麦 (dà mài in pinyin). Or let me know if you have trouble, and I’ll try to hook you up.
