Here are the top China Sports Business news stories you need to know from this week:

Alipay Strikes Deal with UEFA
Chinese payment platform giant Alipay has signed an eight-year deal to sponsor all men’s UEFA national team football competitions from 2018 to 2026. In a deal worth a reported $230 million, Alipay will become UEFA’s official global payment partner for prestigious tournaments such as the UEFA European Championship and the UEFA Nations League finals. Read more on UEFA (English) and Qianzhan (Chinese)

• Mailman Take: Alibaba’s move into the international sports market marks the first of the big 3 Chinese companies (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) to do so. Alibaba’s Mobile payment arm have an aggressive strategy for their international expansion and this demonstrates a new route they are willing to take towards their worldwide vision.

Sina Sports Scores Goal Partnership

Football media brand Goal has netted a two-year partnership with Chinese sports platform Sina Sports. Goal will work with Sina to grow their presence across Weibo as well as helping to nurture their existing Chinese language edition of their platform. Goal will also become the official media partner for Sina’s 5×5 Golden League futsal competition. Read more on The Drum (English) and Sina Sports (Chinese)

Esports Set to Return to Prime Time TV
CCTV has released plans to broadcast a documentary called “China E-sports”, scheduled for release in 2019. This will be the first time that E-sports will feature on China’s state broadcast service since “E-sports World” was suspended in 2003.  Read more on Sutu (Chinese)

Tencent Join The Race for Amer Sports

Internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. is in talks to join a Chinese investor group pursuing a takeover of Finland’s Amer Sports Oyj. Tencent is considering joining the consortium led by Anta Sports Products Ltd. as a minority investor. Read more on Bloomberg (English) and Lanxiong (Chinese)

Tencent Platforms Combine to Create Original Sports IP

Tencent Video and Tencent Sports have collaborated on an original production for the first time to produce a live program titled “Super Nova Games”. Tencent invited 150 celebrities to take part in the competition, as well as several Chinese Olympians who were enlisted as their trainers. Following the launch of Tencent Sports’ Super Penguin League, the collaboration furthers the company’s efforts to develop original sports IP with high commercial value. Read more on Lanxiong (Chinese)

In Other News:

Singles Day Records Smashed

Alibaba have broken last year’s Singles Day sales record, racking up more than $30.8 billion during their 24-hour online shopping event. They hit the $1 billion mark after 1 minute and 25 seconds and that trend continued as they surpassed last year’s total of $25.8 billion in the early evening.  Read more on CNBC (English) and Wallstreetcn (Chinese)

AI News Anchor

China’s state news agency has debuted a virtual anchor designed to be able to deliver the news 24 hours a day. Xinhua unveiled its “artificial intelligence news anchor” on Wednesday at an internet conference in the eastern city of Wuzhen. Read more on CNN (English) and Xinhua (Chinese).

—

Now you can subscribe to our China Sports Business Weekly brief and have it delivered directly to you, wherever you are.

Mailman is a leading China sports digital consultancy and marketing platform. We help global rights holders, athletes and brands build a successful business in China. Learn more about our story here

The post China Sports Business Weekly | 16th November appeared first on Mailman Group.