This weekend, the opening round of the 2020-21 English Premier League season, the world’s biggest football league admitted defeat.

A statement released on China's Weibo social media said the games would not be broadcast as they have not yet finalised a new broadcast partner.

“Premier League chief executive Richard Masters promised to Chinese fans that they are working hard to find solutions to broadcast the matches in China,” it said. “Unfortunately, the first round matches of the 2020-21 season won't be broadcast in China.”

Masters told media in the week that bringing their deal with Suning, who own PP Sports, just one year into its three-year run was difficult.

“The decision to terminate our agreement with Suning was a very difficult one and they had been a very good partner to us,” he said.

“We had some difficulties that we couldn’t resolve and we had to make the decision to move on. We know there are millions of fans in China who want to watch the Premier League so we are taking steps to resolve that situation.

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“We need to make the right decision rather than the quickest decision, so we are getting on to that.

“Clearly it creates some financial issues but we are confident that we made the right commercial decision and the right strategic decision for the Premier League.”

The truth is that they can not afford to be off the air in China for too long. No one can nowadays.

English Premier League clubs are hurting. All sports and their teams are and they need the money from a broadcast deal now more than ever.

With the NBA, who have taken a hundreds of millions dollar loss with its ongoing China troubles, they are hurting at home too.

NBA viewing figures are down, with many – including US president Donald Trump – putting that down to the political nature of the league sanctioned social justice messaging.

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“People are tired of watching the highly political @NBA,” Trump tweeted earlier this month. “Basketball ratings are WAY down, and they won’t be coming back. I hope football and baseball are watching and learning because the same thing will be happening to them. Stand tall for our Country and our Flag!!!”

Reports in February suggested that this NBA season was already down on last season’s figures and things have only got worse.

They had fallen from the March figures when the NBA resumed in its bubble and some claimed they fell sharply again, at least in a year on year comparison, when the players decided to stop playing in protest at the shooting of Jacob Blake – although Bloomberg showed that ESPN and TNT figures went up week on week.

Trump might have been right about American football. The NFL saw a drop in viewers for its own season-opener on Thursday night.

The initial ratings for the Houston Texans visit to the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs showed a 16.1 per cent drop compared to the 2019 NFL season-opener.

That’s one game but not an insignificant drop, certainly a number to worry about at NFL head office – though this also comes at the same time as the NFL offering its first subscription package on its Chinese broadcast partner, Tencent, which launched ahead of the new season.

Whatever else has gone on, the play book remains firmly focused on growth in China. It seems nothing will change that.

There’s 2,680 square metres of shiny proof that the NBA’s relationship with China is repairing in the form of the newly opened NBA store in Guangzhou – the largest in the world.

“The opening of the largest NBA Store worldwide in Guangzhou underscores the league’s long-standing commitment to our fans in China,” NBA China CEO Michael Ma said of the launch.

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That commitment to fans in China is shared by the English Premier League as it is by every single sports team and league that has a China presence. It also happens to be a commitment to the cash that only the China market can generate, which is only becoming more important with trouble back home.

Longer term, not being on Chinese screens will be seen as a problem for the NBA and EPL. It means losing out on a broadcast deal – and presents an opportunity for others to fill that gap because whatever has been said about the Chinese Super League and Chinese Basketball Association being able to replace them is way wide of the mark.

In the short term, though, it seems being off air has done little to knock anything truly off course and everyone is banking on that.