On May 29, Alisports acquired the exclusive operation rights for the FISU University World Cup Football, which will be held in Jinjiang, Fujian Province from 2019 to 2025.
The FISU University World Cup consists of men’s and women’s football tournaments and is designed for the world’s best university teams, rather than national teams.
At a press conference held in Beijing on February 2, FISU President Oleg Matytsin said that holding the University World Cup in Jinjiang is “a unique opportunity for FISU to move towards the future of international university sports.”
This is not the first time for Alisports to embrace on-campus sports since the sports arm of Alibaba is also the exclusive operator of the China University Football Association (CUFA).
In 2015, Alisports signed with Pac-12 Network to introduce NCAA regular games while renewing this deal in October 2017 to expand their cooperation through cultural exchanges on university sports between China and the United States.
In November 2017, the Chinese sports company announced a ten-year deal with the Federation of University Sports of China (FUSC) to promote the development of campus sports in China.
As Zhang Dazhong, founder and CEO of Alisports said, the 2018 CUFA has entered a new stage, which makes them more confident in the business of campus sports.
Proofread by William Logsdon