On August 6, 2018, alisports won the exclusive right to operate CUBA for the next seven seasons (until September 2025) as the bidding process for exclusive business operation services of THE China University Basketball League (CUBA) came to an end. It is worth noting that the price tag for CUBA is not cheap. The total value of the seven-year cooperation between the two sides is more than 1 billion yuan, which is a new record for CUBA.
Alibaba Sports’ move comes on the heels of Tencent’s $500 million five-year deal to acquire the NBA rights to CUBA, which is a fifth of the price tag of the LITTLE-known CUBA. Although Ali Sports is “rich”, facing the immature campus market, the practice of throwing 1 billion yuan on Ali Sports shoulders not a small operational pressure and business risks.
Why ali Sports layout campus events
Review ali Sports before a series of actions, seems to have a preference for campus events. Whether it is the exclusive business operation right of CUFA, the exclusive operation and promotion right of FISU World Cup, or the campus marathon of Chinese university students, ali Sports shows its ambition of coveting campus competitions. The acquisition of CUBA’s operating rights for more than 1 billion yuan is the biggest deal in alibaba sports’ layout of campus sports events, which makes people wonder why Alibaba Sports arranges campus sports events.
One is the huge market for college campuses. Under the current craze of national fitness and sports competition, university campus is an important battlefield that cannot be ignored. According to statistics, the number of college students in China has exceeded 27 million, and its size is growing day by day. In terms of age, college students are generally between 18 and 25 years old, which is the golden age of sports and the mainstay of China’s sports development. At the same time, the sports consumption ability of college students cannot be underestimated. Consumption data on Tmall Taobao platform show that sports consumption of 19-25 years old accounts for 25.25% of the total, which is the leader of sports consumption. The most important thing is that basketball has a high audience and strong participation in college campuses, which is more beneficial to the development of CUBA in the future.
Second, they want to cultivate China’s “NCAA” by learning from the operation mode of American universities. As one of the most important events in the United States, NCAA has always been the benchmark of sports events. According to Forbes magazine, the brand value of the 2014 NCAA Final Four ranked the fourth in the world, and THE NCAA will receive 800 million dollars in broadcasting contracts every year in recent years. In last year’s finals, the audience rating of NCAA live in the United States was 11.3, with nearly 80,000 viewers watching the scene, which was extremely popular. The NCAA has almost become a big party day in the United States.
The success of NCAA in the United States makes Ali Sports yearn for CUBA, and ali Sports can establish a more perfect tournament system by referring to the successful model of NCAA. In particular, Ali Sports was responsible for the operation of PAC-12 (American College Sports League) in China. In this process, Ali Sports was familiar with the operation mode of NCAA, and such experience also provided a good reference sample for Ali Sports in the operation of CUBA. In addition, seven years is enough time for Alibaba Sports to implement a series of changes and breakthroughs to CUBA, which will create more possibilities for CUBA in the future market.
The third reason is to pave the way for the competition for NBA copyright. NBA is the most popular basketball game, and its copyright has always been hot. Data shows that the number of Tencent sports users with exclusive rights to NBA has grown to more than four billion, and its achievements are obvious to all, making many people salivate. Although NBA is not as popular as The World Cup, it is also a big cake everyone wants. Ali Sports will not let Tencent have the opportunity to enjoy it alone. When the contract between Tencent and NBA expires, there will be a fierce competition between Alibaba and Tencent. CUBA is one of the three major basketball leagues in China, and alibaba Sports is expected to compete for the rights to NBA games with CUBA.
From this point of view, CUBA and other campus competitions not only have huge growth space and commercial potential, but also lay a strong foundation for the future competition and development of Ali Sports, thus establishing the future blueprint of Ali Sports.
Alibaba Sports did not have an easy time winning the right to operate CUBA
It can be said that the 1 billion yuan ali Sports bought is “the future”. However, things are not always so smooth, although the future outlook is very beautiful, but the reality is still a bumpy road, Ali Sports in the grasp of opportunities will also face many challenges.
On the one hand, CUBA’s IP popularity is not enough to enhance its brand value. CUBA is expensive is one of China’s three big basketball league, also is rising in recent years, each aspect, but in fact the CUBA’s situation is “depression” wall flower, on the outside wall, that is to say CUBA is less attention to stay in the university campus internal level, no open a larger market outside of the campus, it is an important breakthrough for ali physical problems. In the list of Top 100 Chinese sports brands of commercial Value released by China Brand Value Research Center, CUBA only ranks 87th and is the only campus competition in the list. Its influence and brand popularity are far from the mainstream brand value.
CUBA league, on the other hand, is on the rise, with the biggest potential harvest. Although CUBA has a 20-year development history, it is still in the construction stage and faces many problems, especially in the aspect of revenue. Most CUBA teams are funded by their own schools, with 36.7 percent from other enterprises and 10 percent from the education bureau. Broadcasting revenue and ticket sales are also meagre. CUBA’s lack of blood production capacity, coupled with high operating costs, it is unclear whether Alisports can make back its capital.
Moreover, CUBA has a long way to go before it becomes stronger. Compared with other competitions, the competitiveness and appreciation of college student competitions in China are not enough, and the competitive level needs to be improved, which seriously restricts the development of CUBA league. According to public data, the NCAA sends 90 percent of its players to the NBA, while CUBA sends less than 1 percent to the CBA. This huge gap is due to CUBA’s lack of overall strength, which prevents it from becoming the CBA’s talent pool. More broadly, China is decades behind the United States in terms of sports system and education, and Ali Sports has a long way to go to make CUBA bigger and stronger and bridge that gap.
What is the future of CUBA?
Under such unfavorable circumstances, it is still a big test whether Alisports can create more than 10 percent value after winning the right to operate CUBA for seven years. Faced with the immature campus sports competition of CUBA, what should Ali Sports do in the future?
First of all, media Windows such as Youku live broadcast will be used to increase the exposure of CUBA and enhance the influence of the competition. Under the circumstances of CUBA’s insufficient publicity and attention, youku live broadcasting, news organizations and other media are urgently needed to provide a stage for CUBA to show. By means of broadcasting matches and discussing related news topics, Ali Sports can gradually accumulate and cultivate loyal fans and spectators of CUBA, thus extending CUBA’s attention from inside campus to outside campus, and enabling the public to realize and understand CUBA matches and then know them well, thus achieving a profound change of consciousness.
Secondly, by taking advantage of Alibaba’s ecological advantages, we can open up online and offline business of CUBA by combining “content and e-commerce”. E-commerce, as one of the core businesses of Alibaba Group, will bring considerable income to Alibaba every year, including alibaba’s other sub-ecosystems, such as Alipay, Taopiao, Ele. me, etc., also have considerable potential. Alibaba Sports can connect CUBA’s operation business with Alibaba’s ecological project to create greater development space through fusion reaction. First, the profit can be diversified and the profit problem of CUBA league can be properly solved. Secondly, it also provides users with diversified sports consumption services, increasing user experience of watching games, which can be described as the best of both worlds.
And after, alibaba’s UC, box Ma Xian birth, salted fish, such as flying pigs nearly 30 projects in combination with youku launched a series of comprehensive exploration about the World Cup, also includes some sports variety show, ali is always looking for get through the feasibility of online and offline, to the development of CUBA in the future laid a certain foundation.
Moreover, CUBA player selection system should be improved, talent training should be enhanced, and competition management level and competition value should be improved. Taking basketball as an example, American basketball not only has standardized community and school resources, but also has a very standardized training mechanism and selection system since its childhood. It is also good at stimulating and excavating talented talents, and has unusually rich resources of sports management talents and teachers. In China, however, the lack of a mature training and selection system, as well as the lack of professional education at the grass-roots level, leads to a large number of talents drain, teachers are also pale, creating a vicious circle, which is the root cause of CUBA’s low level of competition. Therefore, if Ali Sports wants to improve the overall level and value of CUBA, it should start with education and selection system, cultivate and excavate relevant professional talents, add bricks to CUBA and transport fresh hematopoietic cells.
All in all, the acquisition of the exclusive operation of CUBA has once again expanded the territory of Alisports, laying a more solid foundation for campus competitions. However, CUBA still has a lot of problems, even with the support of Alibaba Group, Ali Sports still needs to go through a rough road to run CUBA well. CUBA league is still in the development stage, which will not rise to the top in a short period of time. It still needs years of growth and precipitation. It remains to be seen how CUBA will change in the future under alisports.
Article/Liu Kuang public number, ID: Liukuang110, this article first kuang Venture capital network