Sponsoring NCAA is a step of Alibaba's sports economy

‍‍‍‍NCAA’s Pac-12 announced on May 14 that Washington Huskies and Texas Longhorns were going to play a regular game in China’s Shanghai, at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. Alibaba and a Chinese university students association helped with this event. Alibaba also announced a 2-year partnership. 

Alibaba has exclusive rights of broadcasting of NCAA games in China. There would be a second game in 2016 in China. 

There have been many things going on in Chinese sports market lately. Ma Yun invested in Evergrande FC last year. Wang Jianlin purchased stakes of Atletico Madrid FC and Infront. Tencent purchased exclusive online media rights of NBA in China. Under these backgrounds, it seems that Alibaba’s involvement with NCAA is not unexpected. 

Major Chinese corporations have been interested in buying rights of overseas sports events. It is partly because that the censoring system is not as strong for sports events as for other entertainment content, like movies and TV series. 

Under this background, it may not seem to be unexpected for Ma Yun to workwith NCAA. In fact, this cooperation only seems not as good when compared with NBA’s deal with Tencent. 

Ma Yun has demonstrated clear interests in sports sector. Here is a list of what he’s done in this area as reported by media. 

He invested 1.2 billion yuan to acquire 50 percent of Guangzhou Evergrande FC’s stocks in June 2014. He became a member of the 9th committee of the All-China Sports Federation in the same month. NBA star Kobe Bryant went to Hangzhou to meet with “old friend” Ma Yun. Former Olympic champion Lao Lishi was among the 8 participants when Alibaba went public in New York. In March 2015, Sports Bureau of Hubei Province said that Ma Yun was interested in their sports App. YF Capital led by Alibaba invested in Letv Sports, having 7.82 percent of the stakes. 

Sports sector is also an important part of Ma Yun’s plan in the entertainment industry where he has businesses in movie, music, and digital publishing. 

Ma Yun once said that his goal is not sports industry, but sports economy. Maybe NCAA is the starting step for its global sports economy.