Wang Jianlin’s sports business philosophy

“The world is so big, I want to take a look”, Wang Jianlin said when he was invited to give a lecture at Oxford University on February 23, 2016, which reflects the essence of Wanda's spirit of globalisation.

Wang Jianlin also stated some ambitious goals for Wanda’s international efforts: by 2020, Wanda will become a world-class international company and enter the world’s top 30 companies in terms of Group assets, revenue and profit.

Wanda Sports is the newly formed sports unit and an important part of Wang’s entertainment assets. The Chinese billionaire has expressed his ambition to build it into the world's most profitable sports company and the first sports company with an annual income of more than $10 billion.

Wang’s way of conducting his sports business can be simply described in one word: “acquisition”.

In January 2015, the Chinese sports and entertainment giant agreed to buy a 20 percent stake in Atletico de Madrid football club for €45m ($52m).  

In February 2015, Dalian Wanda purchased Infront Sports & Media, a sports marketing company based in Switzerland, for approximately $1.2 billion. Six months later in August, Wanda purchased the World Triathlon Corporation, owners of the Ironman brand, for $650 million.

Last November, the two companies were merged into Wanda Sports Holding, the newly formed sports division at Dalian Wanda. Philippe Blatter, nephew of scandal-plagued FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, was named head of Wanda Sports.

On November 25, Wanda Sports was officially set up with two companies, infront Sports & Media and the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), being integrated into one sports unit and Philippe Blatter installed as the new president and CEO of Wanda Sports.

As to the business for this year, Wang has set a RMB 7 billion revenue target for his Wanda Sports Group in 2016 at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in January. At that AGM (2015) he reported the annual revenue of Wanda Sports had reached RMB5.87bn, exceeding targets by 132.7% percent. Asia’s richest man also stated that he is planning five “substantial” acquisitions in the sports and entertainment sectors this year without naming any particular firms.

In January, Ironman’s purchase of the Lagardère Sports’ endurance division, which includes races in three continents and eight countries, expanded the Group’s reach into cycling.

Apart from that deal, Wanda Sports has completed two other big acquisitions .In January it acquired a 51 percent stake in Omnigon, one of the leading digital services firms within the sports and entertainment industries. Then in February it established a 10-year partnership with Velon, the business venture that includes 11 of the 18 current WorldTour.

Wang said, “We plan to keep merging and adding new content to our sports branch. Wanda Sports aims to become the world's most profitable sports company and the first sports company with an annual income of more than $10 billion.”

The latest acquisitions and resurfaced report that he is believed to be interested in acquiring the rights to cycling’s Tour de France, seems a testimony to his decision to expand his sports portfolio and gradually achieve his great ambition for Wanda Sports.

Proofread by John Devlin.