Alibaba Sports Group launched
Alibaba has got together with Sina Corporation and Yunfeng Capital to set up the new Alibaba Sports Group. According to Alibaba, the new business aims to “transform China’s sports industry through Internet-enabled technologies”.
Alibaba Sports Group will be majority-owned by Alibaba Group and Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group’s chief executive officer, will serve as its chairman of Alibaba Sports Group.
Zhang Dazhong, the former vice president of Shanghai Media Group, will be Alibaba Sports Group’s chief executive officer.
The new entity seems to be operating under a very wide remit. According to a statement issued by Alibaba yesterday (9 September): “Alibaba Sports Group expects to integrate e-commerce, media, marketing, video, home entertainment, cloud computing and other Internet-enabled technologies to form a sports platform that will participate in different aspects of the professional sports industry, including sports copyrights, sports media, events, ticketing, etc.”
The statement also said that the group will use “Internet-based technologies to bring greater and better products and services to consumers, sports participants and sports fans alike” – so it will presumably be involved in selling sports apparel and tickets online.
