Menu
Events and Attractions

Leaders Delivers First-Hand Look At Sport In China In Inaugural Beijing Summit

As the rain thundered down across Beijing, the corridors and halls of Sina Plaza boomed with conversation as the first Leaders Sport Business Summit in China rolled into town. Sina is one of China's internet darlings; the creator of Weibo, and, in Sina Sports, one of the country’s leading digital sports content and community platforms. The internet giant’s shiny new HQ was a fitting setting for a summit with the future of the sports industry as its focus. More than 200 flights into Beijing were canceled Thursday night on account of the weather, but almost 250 intrepid souls made it down to the "Beijing Silicon Valley" for the summit -- including the sponsors that made it happen in IRENA, SAP, and Nielsen.

What went down
After the customary welcome from Leaders CEO James Worrall -- using his own idiosyncratic and bold attempt at Mandarin -- it was over to our hosts, as Arthur Wei, General Manager of Sina Sports, took the podium.

Potted history
In a short opening presentation, Wei stressed just how rapidly the Chinese sports media market has progressed. It was as recently as '84 that China was being welcomed from the wilderness back into the Olympic movement, jump-starting a medals machine that is still whirring today, and breathing new life into its economy through the Reform and Open Door Policy. In '15, the government's State Council Article No. 46 -- otherwise known as the 5T yuan ($740B) target for the domestic sports industry by '25 -- re-energized the sports market again. Sina, already operators of one of the country’s largest social networks in Weibo, took the opportunity to move its sports offering on in a newly-liberalized environment, adding an events arm and forging ahead with short-form tournaments in 3-on-3 basketball and five-a-side football.

Major Leagues, Major Market
Wise words from WWE Greater China GM Jay Li in a panel focused on the varying strategies of the major U.S. sports bodies for cracking China: "As a rights holder here, the critical thing is to keep your finger on the pulse and keep gauging where the media market is going." And, as NBA China COO Collins Qian pointed out, wherever that media market is going, the pace at which it is going there is difficult to comprehend. "I joined the NBA in 2010, the year before Weibo started," he said. "WeChat started a couple of years after that. In the time I've been at the league, both those organizations have added half a billion users from scratch." The power and pervasiveness of those social networks is extraordinary, and delivering bespoke, local content seems to be a must for any int'l rights holder in China. How is the NBA doing it? Well, it is finding ways to get the players to celebrate Chinese New Year, eat dumplings and practice kung-fu of course.

Lander Chair Gao Jisheng
Source: LEADERS
Ground control to Major Zhu
China is arguably one of the most competitive markets for the sportswear industry. The traditional int'l giants are in a constant wrestle with nimble local players like Peak, Li Ning and Anta, whose recent $80M endorsement deal with Klay Thompson of the NBA Golden State Warriors caught the eye. Major Zhu, a major player at Anta as senior brand director, explained that, unlike Nike and adidas, "who focus on performance, Anta is figuring out how to incorporate Klay Thompson's personality into our brand strategy." Thompson, Zhu said, is a down-to-earth guy whose recent visit to China transformed him into an icon. LVMH Greater China CMO Loic Biver, meanwhile, was put on the spot with a question about ROI and eyeballs from Nielsen's Claude Ringuet. Biver looks after the marketing strategies for Hublot and Tag Heuer in China, and neither are easy to measure. "It's hard to measure ROI when you invest in sports in China," he said. "Hublot’s target audience is to talk to owners and players; Tag's target audience is the mass -- then your ROI is the eyeballs, how many people watch this, how many people watch that; and it's clear the viewers are here."

Bounce
The next major event on China’s sporting horizon -- at least before the Beijing 2022 Winter Games -- is the 2019 FIBA World Cup. With the popularity of basketball at both a participatory and spectator level, it is probably the best suited global sports event to China's unique landscape. The infrastructure is more or less there too. Nevertheless, there are major challenges associated with organizing a tournament across the breadth of a country the size of China. The lesson of the day -- one hammered home in session after session -- was that it is imperative to partner with local organizations. And the right local organizations, at that. For FIBA, and its counterparts at the Chinese Basketball Association, Wanda is arguably the perfect fit as a sponsor of the tournament whose sports division is also a long-term strategic partner of FIBA. David Yang, CEO of Wanda Sports, and, as such, closely associated with Wanda’s sponsorship of FIFA, dealt with a question on another sort of World Cup with aplomb. Asked when the FIFA World Cup might come to China, Yang replied, "We're working closely with the CFA on the China Cup -- building credibility in organizing first-tier international football tournaments. I don't want to mention a year, but we're looking forward to bidding for the closest one possible."

Smooth operator
Silken words from Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis, who excels at telling a brand story. Arsenal, he said, is going deep in the Chinese market, playing games, meeting fans, running a bespoke content operation and now forging ahead with a CSR program that includes educating migrant children in Beijing. Former Major League Soccer exec Gazidis has spotted some similarities between the development of football in China and what he has seen in the U.S. "One of the biggest challenges is simply identifying talented players when you have a population of such scale, and then bringing it together into elite hubs is the next challenge," he said. "MLS will stand or fail on the development of U.S. players. Chinese football will stand or fail on the development of Chinese players. No football club in the world, doesn’t matter how grandly they speak, can bring football to China and solve all those issues."

Making broadcast pay
Jun Zhao is CEO of China Sports Media, and one of the most senior women in the Chinese sports industry. Her nickname is "Ms. 8 billion" on account of the rights fee ($1.2B) she sanctioned to take the Chinese Super League contract two years ago. She is in the process of renegotiating that deal on account of a set of damp market conditions precipitated by the Chinese football transfer tax, a swing in foreign currency rates and the financial difficulties encountered by last season's CSL broadcaster, LeSports. Nevertheless, she is proud of the nickname because she thinks it is symbolic of how far the Chinese sports industry has come. Slowly but surely, with a unilateral effort from the likes of PPTV, Tencent and CSM, the reluctance of the Chinese market to pay for services -- "if they offer to pay for tickets, it's like they're losing face" -- is being eroded.

Who coaches the coaches?
Certainly not the top talent leading the teams in the CSL, as far as former England Manager Roy Hodgson is concerned. Asked about the single most important aspect that China should concentrate on in its quest to develop its own national football team, Hodgson offered three pointers: "No. 1: coaching; No. 2: coaching; No. 3: coaching. That's not going to happen with Fabio Capello, Luiz Felipe Scolari, André Villas-Boas, and Gus Poyet. Are they going to be interested in developing Chinese coaches? No, they're targeted to win trophies, not to develop coaches."

James Emmett is the Editorial Director for Leaders in Sport. Leaders is owned and operated by ACBJ.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2017/07/24/Events-and-Attractions/Leaders-Beijing.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Global/Issues/2017/07/24/Events-and-Attractions/Leaders-Beijing.aspx

CLOSE