Not necessarily true, just look at soccer in China in the past two weeks. Just buy all the Lebron's until you figure out the template and can mass produce it.
They can't buy all the Lebrons. They don't want to play in China. During the last NBA strike problems, the same held true: nobody of consequence abandoned ship, they chose to wait it out.
The ~450 NBA players are set to make more than all the Fortune 500 CEOs combined in salary terms, with the new TV rights. China currently can't replicate everything that goes into paying for that (we're talking about $35 billion in salary in just the next 10 years). Buying a few star players won't elevate the overall league, it'll make the league a joke.
China has an economy that is about to be half the size of the US as they are forced to significantly devalue the yuan in the next 12-18 months, and their economy is sinking under a massive and perpetually expanding load of debt. They can't afford to play the game the way they used to, where they'd foolishly pay N times what something is worth just to make it happen. Those days are over, economic normalization is inbound (if they're lucky).
The CSL isn't buying the Lebrons of soccer, though.
Edit to add: And there's more to a successful and interesting league than recognizable players; moreso in soccer than basketball (and even moreso in American football).
