NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday the league expects to lose “several hundred million dollars” due to a row with China over a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey supporting Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters.

The NBA’s Chinese sponsors cut ties in a fierce mainland backlash following Morey’s tweet in October, just before two NBA teams played pre-season exhibition matches in China.

State broadcaster CCTV also stopped airing NBA games for the country’s millions of ardent basketball fans and has not resumed.

“The magnitude of the loss will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Silver told a press conference on the sidelines of the All-Star Weekend in Chicago.