IBF announces that IBF B&R (short for IBF Belt & Road Region) is officially established in China on its press conference titled “The Strategic Alliance of Sports, Culture, Tourism and Media of IBF Belt and Road Region” in August 7. The new organization will enhance the sports communication and integration among countries alongside the “Belt and Road” area (the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road), and that of between China and the other parts of the world.

The First Sport Organization to Respond to the Initiative

In order to support the “Belt & Road” initiative advocated by Chinese Government, IBF – the world professional sport organization, pioneers to establish IBF B&R Region which aims to provide a brand new platform for sports and culture communication among the countries along the Belt and Road.

Daryl J. Peoples, the president of IBF, said: “As early as this May when we had the 34th IBF Annual Global Convention in the U.S., the representatives from Asia, Europe. Africa and Oceania positively discussed the possibility of establishing IBF B&R, and they all agreed the new regional organization should be rooted in China where the “Belt and Road” Initiative has been originally proposed.

With the establishment of IBF B&R, the organization will soon establish its ranking system for boxers who are from the countries and regions alongside the Belt and Road. The boxers’ ranking will be assessed by the IBF B&R Ranking Committee and published every quarter of the year. Principally, the champions or the top ranking boxers of each country alongside the road will be listed in the IBF B&R Boxing Ranking according to their divisions, and the winner of each division will automatically enter IBF World Champions Ranking. IBF will especially set IBF B&R Gold Belt for the winner. 

The newly founded organization will hold the first IBF B&R Annual Convention in October this year. On the Occasion, IBF will publish the structure of the organization, and elect the management team.

On site, IBF B&R Gold Belt is on display. The key color of the belt is white which stands for the ocean spirit of the Maritime Silk Road and the holiness and purity of the Silk Road, while the gold color represents the sands, the desert spirit on the Silk Road Belt and the toughness of the boxing. 

IBF will exert its influence on all member countries alongside the Belt and Road region via its professional standard and system. It aims to improve the whole boxing level among countries involved, to enhance the boxing communication and cooperation among them, to propel the rapid development and to boost the prosperity of boxing industry in the area.

Professional Boxing Embraces the Silk Road 

Since IBF has first launched the Chinese Professional Boxing Tournament in 2015, it has been rooted in China and propelled the further development of Asia’s professional boxing. It has created a new opportunity for Chinese boxers to further improve their professional skills and get their way to the world champions through the establishment of IBF Chinese professional boxer’s ranking. As more and more countries begin to put the “Belt and Road” Initiative into practice, IBF, as the first world sport organization to respond and support the initiative, actively promotes the sports cooperation, propels the development of sport industry, develops the prosperity of its sport and entertainment in the region.

“Sports industry belongs to creative industry. As one of the four world major boxing organizations, IBF has already possessed very good competition brands, like IBF World Championship. However, the establishment of IBF B&R Region injects the new momentum to the IBF’s innovative and development,” said Mr He Wenyi, the president of IBF Strategic Committee. “IBF Silk Road Championship will be a very creative Sport IP. It embraces the market alongside the Belt and Road region, and provides a new opportunity both for IBF brand and the development of boxing itself.”

Through the cooperation between IBF B&R with all TV stations from the countries in the region, IBF will gradually expands its massive coverage of the audiences alongside the Belt and Road. Meanwhile, IBF will further explore its IP from boxing to a more comprehensive sport one. For instance, IBF has reached its strategic cooperation with Hotbody.cn to carry out online and offline promotion of the IBF Silk Road Champions, which will not only help IBF to explore more internet users, especially its boxing fans, but also to deepen the commercial value of its tournament. 

Through developing intelligent boxing gym, boxing games, games tourism, boxing training, boxing e-commerce, and boxing social, etc., IBF tries to make the IBF Silk Road Champions a comprehensive IP which includes competition, fashion, entertainment, training, social and consumption. With the first competition to be held in Macau, the tournaments will promote Macau’s pluralistic development. As the brilliant enterprise in Macau, Multinational (Holdings) Group will cooperate with IBF to develop competition tourism, cultural and creative products, expos and performance, etc,. 

Through IBF Silk Road Championship, IBF tries to discover more brilliant boxers from countries in the region and will promote the chain of the boxing game industry, communication industry, and the linkage of audiences in the area. This will greatly improve the integrated development of boxing industry in the area. With its high standard on games, IBF B&R will make the new tournament full of national characters and local cultures for each country.

To build the Sports Silk Road 

In the context of globalization, the countries alongside the Belt and Road also face new opportunities of transformation and upgrading of their sport industry. Therefore, in consideration of each country’s national conditions, IBF B&R will make diversified trial on sport industry’s development via combining public welfare, technology, internet, movie, cartoon, cultural creation, tourism and training, etc. in order to improve the coordinated development of sport, culture and economy in the countries involved. 

Abiding by the principle, achieving shared growth through co-creation and collaboration, IBF B&R tries to build a new model of integrated development of sport industry among countries alongside the Belt and Road, to construct a “Sport Silk Road” which include competitive sports, sports brokerage, sports tourism, sports training, and to help the boxers in the region to mount the peak of the world champion through IBF Silk Road Champions.

Till now, IBF has built the strategic financial partnership with Huarong Ruize Investment Management Co., Ltd for introducing more potential partners to take part in the IBF B&R strategic alliance of culture, sports, tourism and media, and provide relative support for the IBF Silk Road Champion successfully promoted in the area. 

Following the “Belt and Road” Innovation closely, IBF aims to create a high-end boxing entertainment products, and to further explore the dimension of boxing industry, as well as to draw a brand new future for diversified and trans-regional development of sports industry.