‘Open Sesame’ - Fireside chat with Alibaba’s Michael Evans

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Credit: Getty Image

2017-04-05

On the second day 2017-04-05 of SportAccord convention, the plenary conference on Innovation in action was held. The fourth contribution of the day was the fireside chat with Mike Evans, President, Alibaba Group. Together with David Eades, Journalist and Anchor, BBC World, they discussed the subject of unlocking the rich potential of new sporting horizons, and using innovation to drive sport to a new level of entertainment and fan engagement. Especially the topics of Alibaba’s global ambitions, the company’s innovative approach to sports and entertainment, the growth of the digital and mobile market and the exciting potential of the Chinese market for sport were approached. 

Embrace change is the motto of the Alibaba group. The original mission of Alibaba was to make it easy for small business to do business in China back in 1999. 18 years later several millions shops are to be found on this platform, making it the world’s largest online commerce company. Now the company wants to venture into the world of media, entertainment and most importantly, sport.    

Though Alibaba is mostly known for the part that sells products, the platform is also used as google, where people research the market and it’s used as Facebook, because people use it to interact with each other. The success behind Alibaba is never to give people a reason to leave, always give people a reason to stay. Digital is always on and always there. It’s the goal to take this model from China and globalise it. Michael Evans believes that the consumers in the west wants the same as the Chinese consumers. Because of the globalised and digitalised world, people has access to the same brands and social experiences. 

To bring sport into China, the Western sports companies need to change. They should embrace the new and young consumer that are using the mobile phone to consume content. The content is not just the sporting event in itself, but everything around the sport like the training, losses, wins, and social engagement. Digitally content creating is very important. They are watching peoples’ consumption-habits on the Alibaba platform, which shows that the consumers want short clips that they can share with their friends and not long videos. Sport is currently local and not global, but the future of sport is to make it global and make it a continuous engagement even after the sport event has ended. 

It’s not about sport for sport, but sport as enabling lifeform. Running was not a popular sport before in China. When it was made a life-style event, it became popular. Running-apps was created so that people could connect and suggest new running-places making running a social event. It’s not just about selling the physical products. It’s about enabling people to become a part of sport. 

Currently the future of sport seems positive in China. The Chinese government has an interest in promoting sport. The future of China is teamwork and for the youth to work together to reach a goal. However, Michael Evans warned sports companies to be realistic about, how their brand or sport will do in the early years of venturing into China. Jack Ma always considers that what is existing today, may not exist tomorrow. In the same way one can’t predict what will happen with the Chinese sports market and should always be willing to adapt, when it is changing. 

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