Here are the top China sports business news stories you need to know from this week: Bundesliga Announce China Office The league has announced a long-term strategy aimed at increasing engagement with China to be delivered by its new representative office in Beijing. The office is set to open this March, and is the latest addition to the league’s global network, adding to other offices in Singapore and New York, plus its strategic partnership with IMG Reliance in India. Read more on Bundesliga (English) and Sports Money (Chinese)
Mailman Take: The opening of the China office is the next logical step for the German league after showing increasing dedication to the market year on year. The Beijing office works well strategically with the Bundesliga clubs which have opened China offices in recent years. There are now seven offices in mainland China, including the German league and six of its clubs. We expect other leagues to follow this approach in 2019 and beyond.
Soccerex China 2019
Soccerex, the global leader for the business of football, have unveiled their event line up for 2019 which will see the organisation returning to China on 23 - 24 May, following a hugely successful inaugural event last year. Soccerex China 2019 will take place in Sanya, Hainan, with the event to benefit from the institutional support of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the China Football Association (CFA). Read more on Soccerex English and Chinese
Laureus Launches on WeChat & Douyin
Laureus, the global movement that celebrates the power of sport to bring people together as a force for good, has extended its presence in China by launching official accounts on popular digital platforms WeChat and Douyin. Having launched on Weibo in 2011 and held the Official Laureus World Sport Awards in Shanghai in 2015, Laureus is further extending its footprint in China by launching on Tencent’s WeChat and Bytedance’s short-form video app Douyin. Read more on Laureus WeChat (Chinese) and Xinhua (Chinese)
Mailman Take: Laureus launched the accounts ahead of the Laureus World Sports Awards set to take place in Monaco on February 18. The showpiece event is regularly attended by the world’s most famous sports stars, with tennis legend Roger Federer picking up his fifth and sixth Laureus statuettes in 2018. This year, 69-year-old Chinese climber Xia Boyu has been announced as one of the nominees for the Laureus Sporting Moment of the Year Award - he received the nomination after a global online poll of sports fans.
Mediapro Asia Assigned to CFA Cup Rights The China Sports Media agency has appointed Mediapro Asia – the Asian arm of the Mediapro Group agency – to exclusively distribute media rights of the 2019 China Football Association Cup in the Asia-Pacific region. Read more on Sport Business (English) and Zhibo8 (Chinese)
Li-Ning Sponsors Kidambi Chinese sporting goods brand Li-Ning has sponsored former world No. 1 ranked male singles badminton player Srikanth Kidambi on a 4-year contract worth $4.9 million. Read more on SportsPro (English) Lanxiong (Chinese)
In Other News:
Douyin Goes Head-to-Head with WeChat ByteDance, the world’s most valuable start-up, has introduced a new video-based social messaging service 'Duoshan' which aims to become as popular as Tencent's WeChat. The new video-based social messaging app Duoshan lets users send text messages and stickers, as well as share images and videos. Read more on TechCrunch (English) and Financial Times (Chinese)
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