Ali Sports, the sports subsidiary of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced yesterday a strategic partnership with OCEANS Sports, a Chinese sports marketing agency, to combine their complementary resources in the development and marketing of sports in China.
As announced, Ali Sports will bring to the partnership its strengths in digital media and marketing, big data, and financial services along with the world-leading Alibaba e-commerce ecosystem.
Meanwhile, OCEANS will contribute its experience and resources in integrated sports marketing, event organization and promotion, sponsorship development and relevant relationships across China’s fast-growing sports industry.
This long-term agreement establishes a framework for the pair of industry leaders to work together on a range of projects moving forward. These will cover the likes of service offerings for sports organizations, establishment of sports education institutes, expertise in sports medicine and training.
One example of the initial joint projects to be launched by the strategic partnership will be the promotion of the International Federation of Poker (IFP), a competitive poker format based on points, held both online and offline. The pair will also co-operate on various mass participation events, including the Dalian International Marathon, the TaiHu Changxing Half Marathon and the 100 km Ultra-Marathon in Guizhou.
While OCEANS will manage the event logistics and traditional marketing of these events ‘on the ground,’ Ali Sports will introduce a comprehensive new digital ecosystem to promote the events to a wider audience and to improve the experience and value for the projects’ participants, audience, sponsors and business partners.
Moreover, the two sides are in active discussions with a range of other sports entities. For example, Ali Pay will soon be introduced to facilitate the promotion and ticket sales on behalf of a number of professional Chinese soccer clubs for which OCEANS already has the fan engagement and ticketing rights.
Proofread by John Devlin.