Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott on Tuesday said that
the conference has "agreed to play" an additional basketball game in Shanghai in '16, according to Pete Thamel of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. This comes after Texas plays
Washington at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai on Nov. 14. Scott said, "Basically my vision is that this will be an annual
tip-off game, the way the Pac-12 starts off every year. It'll be a
premiere team against a premiere non-conference opponent, a new
tradition for how we start the season." The league also has
"agreed to a two-year deal" with Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group to sponsor the Pac-12 China Game in Shanghai in '15
and '16. Costs for the games "will be covered" by the new sponsor deal,
which "hints at the potential for overseas companies to become involved
with college sports." Scott: "This feels significant to me. The fact
that we are partnering with a company like Alibaba, the biggest
E-Commerce company in the world, validates the vision and the
significance of what we're doing." This marks Alibaba's
"first major sponsorship of an organization" in the U.S., sports or
otherwise. The game will be televised on ESPN in the U.S. and
"distributed live in China via Alibaba's mobile and digital platform."
Scott "declined to reveal the financial specifics of the deal with
Alibaba, but did say they are significant enough to cover the costs of
the games" (SI, 5/13).
