By Bob Mackin
It’s the Year of the Monkey, but will competing sports entities be as “ambitious and adventurous” as the National Basketball Association (NBA)?
The NBA ran a Chinese New Year ad campaign for three weeks beginning in late January, showing stars like Stephen Curry, Jeremy Lin and James Harden enjoying a celebratory meal with a Chinese family. Teams in select markets with large Chinese communities wore special-edition jerseys bearing team names in Chinese characters. Across the Pacific, 51 NBA games were shown in a 19-day period in February, including 18 on China’s state broadcaster CCTV and 18 on the Tencent streaming service.
The Vancouver Canucks have watched the NBA develop cross-cultural marketing strategies, and Trent Carroll, Canucks Sports & Entertainment executive vice-president of sales and marketing, hints that the National Hockey League (NHL) is preparing its China strategy.
“They’re [NHL] developing their overall program for China and that market. It’s kind of hard to get too aggressive when the landscape hasn’t been fully fleshed out,” said Carroll. “I expect we’re going to get a better idea of what’s doable and what’s not doable in the near future.”
In 2015, Andong Song became the NHL’s first Chinese player selected in the draft by the New York Islanders. Russian-based rival Kontinental Hockey League announced its plan for an expansion team in Beijing, which will host the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Toronto Maple Leafs, not the Canucks, were the first team to open a Chinese business division in 2011. More than 100 NHL regular-season games are broadcast annually by CCTV, meaning there could be more people watching Hockey Night in Canada in China than in Canada.
Last summer, the Feiyang Skating Centre in Shanghai hosted the second annual Air Canada-sponsored Canucks in China Summer Hockey School.
“It hasn’t been over the top in any big way, but what that has done is open up opportunities for dialogue with individuals and groups that want to do more,” Carroll said. “It’s in its infancy right now. The other big play is on the digital side, looking at [Chinese social media platforms] WeChat and Weibo, and if we’re effectively communicating to the local community in an appropriate manner.”
According to Canada’s 2011 census, more than 340,000 people in Greater Vancouver reported their mother tongue as Cantonese, Mandarin or Chinese not otherwise specified on the 2011 census. Richmond has 92,000 Chinese, about 49% of the municipality’s population.
In 2011, the Vancouver Whitecaps became the first Major League Soccer franchise to field a Chinese-born player, striker Long Tan. More recently, Jamaican striker Darren Mattocks was rumoured to be heading to China.
The Chinese Super League spent US$430 million acquiring players in the January-February international transfer window, outspending the English Premier League by US$100 million. It is evidence that deep-pocketed team owners are heeding President Xi Jinping’s call to make China’s sports industry a US$1 trillion concern by 2025.
@bobmackin
