Alibaba Sports CEO Zhang Dazhong: IP members who promote original events will get through Tmall Taobao

"Sports are characterized by being good at aggregating resources. The last thing we want to see is that the agreement is facing expiration but the cement has not yet been turned into bricks and mortar, and the potential development and capital investment of IP are lost." Zhang Dazhong believes that the advantage of capital is to help resource development and maximize value. "It is important to hold IP in hand, but at a time when capital is becoming increasingly aware, how to develop and operate the value of IP to the extreme is the key to deciding the outcome."

Original title Ali Sports Layout: Members who sign up for international competitions will open up Tmall Taobao.

Compared with Wanda Sports and LeSports, which have been working in the industry for many years, Ali Sports, which was just established in September last year, has always humble itself as a "small company." As Ali Sports gradually blooms and grows into one of the proudest children of "Ali Dad", its unique growth path has gradually attracted attention. Recently, Zhang Dazhong, founder and CEO of Ali Sports, accepted an exclusive interview with reporters and explained in detail the growth path and layout ideas of Ali Sports.

At

the beginning of its establishment, Ali Sports reached a cooperation with FIFA and became the exclusive title sponsor of the FIFA Club World Cup from 2015 to 2022, attracting global attention in one fell swoop.

Like all giants, the main theme of Alibaba Sports is IP at its core. "Today is still the era when IP is king." As the founder of China's earliest professional sports channel (now the Shanghai Five-Star Sports Channel), Zhang Dazhong believes that IP is the glue, while sports and the public are soil and sand. If you want to play the sports industry, you must take into account all three.

A series of cooperation signings by Ali Sports can quite demonstrate its ingenuity in IP creation. At the beginning of its establishment, Alibaba reached a cooperation with FIFA. Alibaba became the exclusive title sponsor of the FIFA Club World Cup from 2015 to 2022. The "Ali Cup" also attracted attention from around the world.

On January 7 this year, Ali Sports included the NFL's broadcasting rights in China. Then, Mendes, the "world's number one football agent", joined forces with Fuentertainment Culture and Ali Sports to announce that they would jointly build a superstar IP integrated operation service platform. In Zhang Dazhong's view, the brokerage rights of Mendes's giants clubs, famous coaches and stars have scarce resources and huge imagination space. A few days later, Ali Sports reached a 20-year strategic cooperation with the International Boxing Federation to jointly promote the professional development of boxing, upgrade events and fully launch the digital construction of boxing on a global scale.

In early April, Ali Sports first joined hands with China Table Tennis Association and China Badminton Association to jointly create the "Table Tennis and Badminton Home" of China Table Tennis and Badminton Member Service Platform, and then worked with the World Rugby Federation to cultivate the China market for rugby. At the beginning of June, Ali Sports reached cooperative relationships with two iconic venues, the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube, and did not rule out the possibility of introducing World Club Cup events, top world rugby competitions, and FINA official training to the venues.

Zhang Dazhong said frankly that every contract signed by Ali Sports will mobilize the resources of the entire Ali ecosystem to open up various cooperation one after another and extend it infinitely. For example, after signing the contract to name the World Club Cup, Ali Sports immediately teamed up with Ali Travel to create several Japanese "football watching + travel" products. According to the reporter, the special products of this year's World Club Cup are already under negotiation with FIFA.

Promoting original events

Although it is much more difficult to create an event independently than simply buying copyright, Zhang Dazhong believes that the biggest advantage of original IP is that all rights and interests belong to the creator, and it is up to him to decide how to use the copyright and how to subsequently develop it.

Promoting original events further demonstrates the ingenuity of Ali Sports, which has found a new way in the fierce battle over IP.

"Sports are characterized by being good at aggregating resources. The last thing we want to see is that the agreement is facing expiration but the cement has not yet been turned into bricks and mortar, and the potential development and capital investment of IP are lost." Zhang Dazhong believes that the advantage of capital is to help resource development and maximize value. "It is important to hold IP in hand, but at a time when capital is becoming increasingly aware, how to develop and operate the value of IP to the extreme is the key to deciding the outcome."

The World E-Sports Games (WESG) is Alibaba Sports 'first original IP and the project that has invested the largest amount in capital and talent allocation. According to reports, the total investment for the first event will exceed 100 million yuan, and the company has also established an electronic sports business department.

In fact, Zhang Dazhong's "e-sports dream" has been brewing in his heart for more than ten years. It was under his push that China's first e-sports competition was held in Shanghai in 1994, and it was therefore known by the industry as the "father of China's e-sports."

In 2015, the revenue of China's game industry reached 140.7 billion yuan, becoming the world's largest market, of which e-sports accounted for 27 billion yuan. However, compared with traditional sports events, e-sports has not been able to find a real profit point for a long time. However, in Zhang Dazhong's view, e-sports has extremely rich monetization channels. In addition to traditional income such as tickets, sponsorships, advertising, etc., its derivative income is also very considerable, including e-sports clubs and players, live broadcast platforms and anchors and other events. The core link of the industrial chain outside the event. According to Zhang Dazhong, before the first WESG kicked off, ImbaTV, the producer of high-quality e-sports content, invested 35 million yuan to obtain the global official anchor station rights of the event. This is the first time that an e-sports event has made profits through sales of copyright.

Although it is much more difficult to create an event independently than simply buy copyright, Zhang Dazhong believes that the biggest advantage of original IP is that all rights and interests belong to the creator, and it is up to him to decide how to use the copyright and how to subsequently develop it.

Zhang Dazhong said that in fact, Alibaba Sports is planning multiple original IPs at the same time, but its team spends the most energy on e-sports.

Just last week, Ali Sports 'second largest original IP-the International Online Road Running Alliance WORA was officially launched. This is the first road running event in China that fully combines the Internet with traditional events. The alliance covers five major sectors: road running apps, associations, events, sponsors, and executors, with a goal of covering 150 million road running participants. At present, well-known road running apps such as Guldong, Yue Run Circle, Le Power, and Tiger Pushing Running have become the first batch of participants, and domestic high-quality events such as the Hainan International Marathon are also entering one after another. In addition, CSM, the international sports marketing giant that once signed a contract with Alibaba Sports, will also introduce international competitions for it, helping WORA become an international road running alliance.

What is more noteworthy is that WORA attracts more sponsors for all parties, provides funds and resource support to alliance members, and with the continuous entry of technical service providers and executors, the alliance will form a virtuous cycle and realize platform realization. Zhang Dazhong told reporters that the Road Running Alliance had attracted a large number of sponsors in the early stages of planning and had reached a profitable state before the start of the competition.

Road running has become a boom. In 2015 alone, 134 marathon and related sports events were registered with the China Athletics Association, a year-on-year increase of more than 160%. According to consumption data from the two major online shopping platforms, Tmall and Taobao, the total consumption of road running in 2015 reached 21.8 billion yuan, and the consumer population reached 73 million.

What

Alibaba Sports needs to do to build a membership system for the entire industry chain is to connect the people behind big data. In the future, Alibaba Sports members will not only connect with Tmall, Taobao and Alipay users, but will also connect with member information of various events and associations.

"The goal of Ali Sports is to establish a basic platform for China's sports economy." The ambition of Ali Sports's overall layout is fully demonstrated. Zhang Dazhong further explained that the basic platform of Ali's digital economy built by Ali's e-commerce, logistics, big data, cloud computing, digital marketing, etc. has been very complete. Thinking about how to perfectly combine it with sports is the important task of Ali Sports.

Although the construction of the platform requires a lot of investment of money, time and resources, Zhang Dazhong has always emphasized that Alibaba Sports does not burn money. The industry is happy to see the influx of "hot money" capital, but Zhang Dazhong believes that even if you burn money, you must grasp your own direction and burn your own characteristics, and avoid blindly following the trend.

How can you establish your "Jianghu" status without burning money? Zhang Dazhong revealed to reporters the "secret" of Ali Sports's strategic layout: "Whether it is an original event or other cooperative event, our selection criteria are only two: the largest number of participants and the favorite of young people."

Zhang Dazhong disclosed to reporters a set of consumption data on Tmall and Taobao: the number of consumers purchasing sporting goods has increased year by year, from 300 million in 2014 to 400 million in 2015, and the sales amount has increased from 73 billion to 90 billion. "The most important feature of sports is participation. Our goal is to select the project with the largest number of participants, not the number of viewers. This is the reason for choosing e-sports, table tennis and badminton, and layout road running."

Zhang Dazhong believes that sports rules are globally consistent, even more universal than language, and do not have any specialization due to regional limitations. Therefore, they are the most easily globalized industry, which is also very similar to Alibaba's expansion ideas. Alibaba Sports's layout has been a global business strategy from the beginning, using big data to refine operations, and at the same time grafting it into the parent company's sound ecology and foundation to produce unexpected chemical reactions.

Behind big data is the crowd, and what Ali Sports needs to do is connect the crowd behind big data. In the future, Alibaba Sports members will not only connect with Tmall, Taobao and Alipay users, but will also connect with member information of various events and associations. Based on Alibaba's big data, it also helps Alibaba introduce new users and promote activity. In addition, members can also directly link to FIFA, FINA, FIBA, etc. to complete information request and redemption from various associations, official or private event organizers, including entry registration, derivative purchase, event viewing, etc. "The ultimate goal of Ali Sports is to realize membership in the entire sports industry and turn all people into athletes." Zhang Dazhong said.

Editor: Nancy