China Sports Update: Huang, Yi Jianlian, MLB, Starbury
Tuesday, 31st August 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Yi Jianlian, Washington Wizard, in a Washington Bullets jersey
Sometimes we get a little bit behind at keeping you up to date here at CST. Sorry about that, but below are a few of the top recent stories:
Huang and QSL never made a formal bid for Liverpool FC
Kenny Huang, Marc Ganis and their company QSL are completely out of the Liverpool FC buying discussion. And accoring to a recent report in the Telegraph, they never made a formal bid. QSL seems to be blaming the deal's evaporation on all the publicity, claiming it caused their key investor to walk away. Hmm… A Chinese investor thought it was going to quietly buy an English Premier League team? Huang's now 0-2 on these big-league bids, and he was confident enough about the first one to name his company after it (QSL stands for Qishi Lianmeng, Cavalier Group, a name chosen while the company was hoping to buy a stake in the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers). With these high-profile fails in two of the globe's biggest sports leagues, he's sure to be viewed more skeptically in the future.
Yi Jianlian eludes NBA China's grasp, again
Every October, two NBA teams come to play exhibition games in a few Chinese cities. Last year, the Denver Nuggets played the Indiana Pacers. In 2008, the Milwaukee Bucks played the Golden State Warriors—a matchup that would have brought Yi Jianlian back home to play, if he hadn't been traded to the New Jersey Nets on the eve of the 2008 NBA Draft.
Yi's slipped through the NBA marketing department's fingers yet again. This spring, the NBA scheduled the Houston Rockets to play the New Jersey Nets, in what would have been an historic opportunity to see China's two current NBA players go head-to-head in Beijing and Guangzhou. But the Nets sent Yi to the Washington Wizards, so Yao Ming, if he's actually back on the court by then, will be the only Chinese national in the game.
Right now, Yi's busy in Turkey, where he's leading the Chinese national team at the FIBA World Championships. China is 1-1 with a loss to Greece and a win over Cote d'Ivoire (who are sponsored by Chinese basketball apparel brand Peak). He's averaging 26 and 11. In the next game, August 31, China faces Puerto Rico and Yi has a chance to avenge his dismal 3-for-15, 11-point performance against them at Madison Square Garden two weeks ago.
MLB still swingin'
Despite its sport being dropped from the Olympics, Major League Baseball has not given up on China. The Washington Post just ran a great update (with some nice photos) on the MLB's China activities, which are largely focused on a training academy in Wuxi, where players learn the game under the direction of Rick Dell, who has been key to MLB's Asia efforts for years now. Interesting takeaway from this piece: It implies that the teenagers training in Wuxi now are being groomed with the hopes not that they will make the big leauges, but that they will train the players from the next generation who will.
Starbury to return, with more shoes
Stephon Marbury's coming back to Taiyuan this year, to play for the CBA's Shanxi Zhongyu, with whom he's signed a two-year contract with an option for a third. This time, Marbury's taking a more strategic approach to marketing his Starbury shoes in China, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Yi Jianlian in a Bullets jersey image: Hi.baidu.com
Tags: English Premier League, FIBA World Championships, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang, Liverpool FC, MLB, NBA, QSL, Stephon Marbury, Yi Jianlian
More than window shopping? "Kenny" Huang Jianhua and the Liverpool bid
Friday, 6th August 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Earlier this week, "Kenny" Huang Jianhua entered the UK media spotlight when "it emerged" (The Times' words) that he was trying to lead a purchase of the English Premier League's Liverpool FC. Several reports indicated that he was working on behalf of the Chinese Investment Corporation (CIC), China's sovereign wealth fund. Midweek, Huang's PR people issued a press release saying that he "has registered interest in investing in Liverpool FC but has made no formal bid."Kenny Huang buying Liverpool FC? Certainly not on his own. Chinese government buying Liverpool? Very unlikely. This story already has too many unnamed sources, but I have to add one more: This morning I spoke to someone close to the CIC, who says that people there who would be involved in such a deal if it were in the works, and that person "have never heard of Huang Jianhua."
Huang (left) with Chinese Baseball Association chairman Lei Jun
As Gady Epstein, Forbes' man in Beijing, explains, it seems to make no sense for CIC to get involved in English soccer. The CIC's job is to make money, and despite being high-passion and high-profile organizations, soccer clubs are not high-profit. But China Daily reports that over the past two weeks, CIC has divested almost precisely enough of its investments to raise the 351.4 million pounds that The Guardian says is a rumored sale price for Liverpool. Matt Scott at The Guardian suggests that CIC is interested in Liverpools' TV rights and is speculating that the team can improve its finances by better leveraging media. There is also wide speculation that the club is undervalued, meaning that whoever buys it could possibly make a quick profit reselling it soon.
Huang clearly has interest in buying the club—or, more accurately, helping an investor or a group of investors make the purchase. He's no Mikhail Prokhorov, the self-made Russian billionaire and new majority owner of the New Jersey Nets. He needs other people's money to get this done.
As for the CIC/Huang connection, Epstein wisely guesses that someone got wind of a relatioship Huang has or says he has with CIC, and blew it out of proportion. But I'm inclined to think that Huang leaked the information himself. Though he shies away from direct media contact, he likes to manipulate the media. When he held a rare press conference in Beijing last year to announce his partnership with the Chinese Baseball Association, as reported here, the whole affair seemed targeted at potential sponosors who could help fund the Chinese Youth Baseball League, for which his company, QSL, had no actual plans. Also, Huang is a broker who seems unsatisfied with hanging in the background—he wants to be the face of the deals that he's involved in, and self-promotes accordingly.
Could it be that he leaked the Liverpool story to generate some buzz, and signal to potential investors that he was in a position to help them bid for Liverpool? Or maybe he learned that CIC was liquidating in preparation to make a bid, and he hopes to bluff his way into representing them.
Whatever is going on, Liverpool fans should know soon who their team's next owner will be, as the current owners are trying to get the deal done by next week.
Tags: Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang, Liverpool FC, Premier League, QSL, soccer
Looking back: China's top 10 sports stories in 2009
Monday, 21st December 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The Bird's Nest is just one of a growing number of white elephants in China. Jinan's Olympic Stadium, above, was built for this year's National Games.
1. Chinese soccer league match fixing
Bribery, match fixing, betting—the Chinese Soccer League has long been tainted with some of sport's worst scourges. In November, police arrested 16 players, coaches and officials in an attempt to clean up the league. But observers say that a lot more still needs to be done.
2.Chinese swimming makes a splash in Rome
When Zhang Lin became China's first male swimming world champ in Rome this summer--winning the 800-meter freestyle in world record time--media quickly crowned him the Liu Xiang of the pool. But unlike Liu, Zhang had some backup from his teammates, as China put in its best ever performance at the world meet. With 4 golds and 10 medals, China was behind only the United States and Germany. Though Zhang Lin dominated the headlines, it was the women—led by Liu Zige and Zhao Jing--who were responsible for China's breakout. Female swimmers accounted for all but two of China's medals, and three of the four golds.
3. Diving judging scandal
China's national games diving competition was shaken up when one judge quit late in the competition, and then leveled accusations that results were fixed and that Zhou Jihong, head of the Chinese diving federation, calls all the shots.
4. Sports official spills secrets
Former national volleyball coach and long-time senior sports administration leader Yuan Weimin published his memoir, "Yuan Weimin: Storms of the Chinese Sports World" in October. Among the stories in Yuan's memoir that are making sports officials squirm is the tale of a shady vote-trading arrangement that put Belgium's Jacques Rogge at the head of the International Olympic Committee and brought the 2008 games to Beijing.
4. Empty Nest
The Beijing Olympics' iconic building, Beijing National Stadium--aka the Bird's Nest, aka a $400 million project that takes $70 million to maintain annually, aka a venue that required the relocation of thousands of families—has hosted only four events since the games ended 16 months ago (including an opera and a martial arts show that couldn't have possibly turned a profit). The situation is so bad that in the fall, the state took back operating control of the venue from its private owners.
5. Liu Xiang's return
A grimacing Liu Xiang limping around the Bird's Nest track was one of the most potent images of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The former Olympic and world record holder in the 110-meter hurdles, an athlete who rivals Yao Ming in prominence in China, was unable to run because of an injury to his Achilles tendon. More than a year later, he put doubts to rest about whether his career was finished, returning to competition in the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix, where he finished second in a 13.15-second photo finish.
6. China win's women's curling worlds
Curling? On a top 10 list? Stick with me here… When China's women's curling team won world championships last year, skipper Wang Bingyu and her teammates became instant media stars on the mainland. The current team is China's first generation of curlers, and if Canada doesn't figure out how to beat them at the 2010 Winter Olympics, curling will become only the second team sport in which China has won an Olympic gold medal (women's volleyball being the other, in 1984 and 2004).
7. Dealmaker Kenny Huang
Last May, news broke that a Chinese investor was nearing a deal to purchase a 15 percent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA franchise. That investor was Huang Jianhua, or Kenny Huang, who subsequently made a deal to promote youth baseball with the Chinese Baseball Association and to purchase a team in the Chinese Basketball Association. Last week, reports indicated that the Cavs purchase might go through before the end of the year. The lead on the deal is now Albert Hung, but Huang's still very much involved and seems to have dreams of a Chinese sports empire--keep an eye on this guy.
9. HSBC Champions
Shanghai's HSBC Champions golf tournament was elevated this year to World Golf Championship status, with $7 million in prize money. Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els finished first and second, and China got its last look at a squeaky clean Tiger Woods, who finished sixth. In his reporting on the event for ESPN, Shanghaiist editor Dan Washburn wrote that the event was well timed, as the inclusion of golf in the Olympics could provide a boost to the sport's popularity and official support here. HSBC Champions returns to Shanghai next year, which means it will take place alongside the Shanghai World Expo.
10. China disappears from the NBA
While Huang buys his way into the NBA, Chinese players are limping out. Yao Ming is missing the current season with a foot fracture, and the Nets' Yi Jianlian played just four games before sitting out at least the next 24 with injuries. The next great hope, Sun Yue, was dropped by the Lakers, then picked up and dropped by the New York Knicks. The NBA could really use another once-in-a-lifetime athlete like Yao right about now.
Related:
Zhang Lin, China's first male swimming champ
China Daily: Enthusiasm fades for Bird's Nest
LA Times on Yuan Weimin
ESPN.go.com: Olympics makes China major player in golf
Tags: Bird's Nest, curling, Dan Washburn, football, HSBC Champions, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang, Liu Xiang, Liu Zige, NBA, soccer, Sun Yue, Yi Jianlian, Yuan Weimin, Zhang Lin
China-Cavs deal finally going through?
Wednesday, 16th December 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Huang Jianhua (Kenny Huang, left) in Beijing, June 2009
Yesterday, Reuters reported that Huang's deal fell through and that another group, led by another Chinese investor, one Albert Hung, is now buying that stake from Camelot Venture Group and David Katzman, former Cavs vice chairman.
But apparently Huang is not out of the picture. "Mr. Kenny Huang and Mr. Albert Hung are partners in the same company," a spokesperson for Huang told China Sports Today Tuesday. "Kenny will focus more with his investment in China while Mr. Hung will deal more with the Cavs matters going forward."
It would have been pretty embarrassing for Huang if he'd been completely squeezed out of the deal. When he made the baseball announcement in Beijing, he was calling his company QSL Sports, short for Qishi Lianmeng (骑士联盟), or Cavalier Alliance.
According to Reuters, Hung and company are paying cash and the deal should be finalized by the end of the year. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Cavaliers and Quicken Loans Arena have already signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with Tsing Tsao, China's ubiquitous domestic beer brand. The story doesn't explain what role Huang had in that deal, saying only that the parties signed it "With Huang standing over their shoulders."
The Cavs purchase is interesting and the other moves that Huang has made in Chinese sports—the baseball program, the CBA team–suggest his involvement with the Cavs is just meant to be one piece in a future sports empire.
In the above-mentioned Plain Dealer story, Brian Windhorst is clearly a big-time believer in Huang. The story opens: "Kenny Huang is a man who understands." The next paragraph lists Huang's Trans-Pacific credentials, followed by this:
"When he sees the Cavaliers and LeBron James he thinks big, grand long-term ideas. Then he executes them."
Slurp, slurp. What big, grand long-term ideas have been executed here? Windhorst finds Huang impressive that he cites him as a source for gauging the relative popularity of NBA teams in China:
"Huang said interest in the Cavs has exploded in China and they have surpassed the Houston Rockets, who have Chinese national hero Yao Ming, in popularity."
We're not saying that Huang Jianhua isn't likely to have interesting things up his sleeve, and big-time plans for the Chinese sports market. And we're not saying that the Plain Dealer hasn't done some decent reporting on Huang (witness this article from last May). But it's a little early to crown him MVP of Sino-U.S. deal-making.
Related:
Chinese investors buying stake in Cavs
Huang bets on baseball
NBA.com: Cavs new part owners interested in signing Yao
QSL's China baseball partnership still in very early planning stages
Tags: Albert Hung, baseball, basketball, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang, Lebron James, NBA, QSL, Yao Ming
Yao and Yi's Trade Talk
Monday, 22nd June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Last year, draft day eve saw a trade that moved Guangdong native Yi Jianlian from the Milwaukee Bucks to the New Jersey Nets. A year later, the shine has dulled on Yi's move to a bigger market with a bigger Chinese-American population and a hope of landing Lebron James in 2010. The power forward played showed some consistent strong play in January before getting injured and then never returning to form the rest of the season. He averaged 8.6 points and 5.3 rebounds. Yi has three years left on a $15.6 million contract with the Nets.
While Yi might not have earned his $3 million on the court for the Nets last year, a recent piece in the New York Daily News indicates that the team likes his marketability in China. Yi is China's third most influential celebrity, according to Forbes' annual ranking of Chinese celebrities. The Daily News piece says that Nets CEO Brett Yormark is currently in China meeting with executives from 33 different companies with the goal of signing four or five new deals.
Yao Ming, by far China's biggest sports star, has been talked about for a move to Cleveland ever since news broke of a group led by Chinese businessman Huang Jianhua, aka Kenneth Huang, working on a deal to buy a 15 percent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers. So far, it amounts to little more than a Chinese fan's fantasy of bringing Yao together with 2009 NBA MVP Lebron James. Yao's got two years left on his contract, with the freedom to opt out on the last year, in which he would make $17 million if he chose to stick around. He's been a Rocket for all of his seven-year career and is the face of the franchise, both for fans and for opposing teams--beating the Rockets means stopping Yao (if, of course, he's healthy).
Yao added a little fuel to the rumors earlier this week with his vague talk in an interview with Shanghai television station. "It is still an unknown," was his response to questions about a possible move to Cleveland.
Related:
Chinese investors buying stake in Cavs
Yi, Jay-Z and Lebron?
Lebron, Yao image: Blogcn.com
Tags: basketball, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Huang Jianhua, Kenneth Huang, NBA, New Jersey Nets, Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian
QSL's China baseball partnership still in very early planning stage
Tuesday, 9th June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (1)
Huang (left) with Chinese Baseball Association chairman Lei Jun
But Huang wasn't there to talk basketball--in fact, he wouldn't answer any questions about the Cavs deal (which, according to Marc Stein at ESPN, hit a snag when an embezzlement suit was filed against Huang in Florida). Instead, he and Marc Ganis, owner of Chicago-based SportsCorp Limited, were there to talk about their partnership with the Chinese Baseball Association to develop youth baseball in China.
The baseball deal, which brings the CBA and Huang's QSL Sports together to create the Chinese Youth Baseball League (CYBL), was announced last week. Ganis is a strategic partner charged with creating the league's framework, developing facilities and providing coaching support. But with no imminent plans to form teams, start league play, build a single ballpark or broadcast any baseball content on Chinese television--all things that QSL said last week that it planned to do--the CYBL seems far from ready for a ceremonial first pitch. Questions about details of any planned initiatives between QSL and the CBA were evaded.
"We have been working very closely with CBA to set up the youth league competition," Huang said. "We have a lot of cooperation with Taiwan as well. We are targeting within the next twelve months to have some real competition getting started, but we don't have a fixed timeline or schedule yet."
QSL did not reveal how much it plans to invest in Chinese baseball, only saying that it is a multi-million dollar commitment over the next 15 years. Huang and Ganis did not say which cities might see games first, but the six cities with CBA-run Chinese Baseball League teams are the obvious candidates.
If QSL had no actual plans to announce, why hold a press conference now? By following the Huang-Cavs story by one week, the baseball announcement got more press than it otherwise would have in China. Several basketball journalists attended the press conference at the China Sports Administration's headquarters complex, adding to media coverage that could help with QSL's search for sponsors, which is clearly a priority.
Marc Ganis
"Building baseball fields is one of the great sponsorship opportunities that are out there," Ganis said. "We think that when people see those opportunities, when we create them, you'll see a lot of fields being built."
Today's press conference mostly addressed well-worn questions about baseball's challenges and potential in China, but the NBA association is front and center for QSL. Its Chinese name, 骑士联盟（Qishi Lianmeng), means Cavalier Alliance or Cavalier Union.
The QSL-CBA deal has no affiliation with Major League Baseball, and the MLB found out about it at the same as the general public. MLB is currently the leading promoter of youth baseball in China. Its Play Ball program, which organizes competition between 120 schools in four cities, just finished its second year with the Diamond Cup, a two-day championship tournament in Shanghai. For the next four months, the MLB Road Show, a sort of small baseball festival, will visit five Chinese cities. The league also contributes equipment and clinics for coaches, players and umpires.
"Not only is the game in a developing stage, but interest is in a developing stage," says Rick Dell, MLB's director of baseball development for China, who has been involved in baseball in Asia for 15 years. "If there's anyone in this country who knows how difficult it is to do what he's talking about doing, it's me. To have a great plan and execute it is a challenge here. And if you have no plan, it's impossible to get anything done. If they had a plan ready, they probably would have mentioned it."
What QSL does have is a formal agreement with the sports administration--no small feat in China--and the business leadership of Huang, who is emerging as a fascinating deal maker working to bridge the gap between the Chinese and American sports worlds and hoping to make a pile of cash doing it.
Related:
Huang bets on baseball
Chinese investors buying stake in Cavs
Tags: baseball, basketball, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang
Huang bets on baseball
Tuesday, 2nd June 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Kenneth Huang (Huang Jianhua, 黄健华), is now betting on baseball's development in China, making a major move in the sport here through one of his companies, QSL Sports Limited. QSL has formed a partnership with the Chinese Baseball Association to develop the Chinese Youth Baseball League (CYBL)."Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese players get to play in the best leagues in the world and so will the Chinese," said Huang, the Chinese-born, U.S.-educated businessman who is leading a Chinese company's purchase of a stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers. "It is my belief that China, as a sports-loving nation, has immense potential in offering great talent to the world of baseball at the highest levels. This partnership with CBA turns a new page in the development of baseball in China."
The deal involves a multi-million-dollar, 10-year commitment, and QSL intends for it to be a revenue generator in its own right, though sponsorship, merchandising, broadcasting and player management. Marc Ganis, the owner of Chicago-based SportsCorp Limited, will play a key role in setting the league's framework and bringing in coaching talent. Huang and Ganis together created SportsCorp China, which has arranged China marketing deals with the New York Yankees and the Houston Rockets.
"I look forward to seeing more Chinese players take their places in Major League Baseball just like Yao Ming does in the NBA," Huang said. "I am confident that our effort will help grow in China a love of the game in the near future."
The release makes no mention of any involvement in the deal on the part of Major League Baseball. The MLB staged a double-header in Beijing last year between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the site of that game--Wukesong Baseball Stadium--is an Olympic venue slated for destruction. The league is putting on a five-city road show between now and October, with stops in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Wushi and Chengdu.
Is this good or bad for the MLB? The league certainly seems like it could use an assist in its China efforts. It couldn't save Wukesong, has no broadcast deal in China and last year's MLB China Games were only a mild success. Nor has there been any development of ballparks to speak of. The MLB has good people with good intentions working on its behalf in China, but there are definitely some missing pieces. Maybe Huang and QSL can bring in some of those pieces. Any success they have with the CYBL will have to involve giving kids something to dream about--and playing in the MLB is still the ultimate in baseball dreams. The risk for the league is not so much of him creating a brand that supplants the MLB here, but of him setting the terms of the league's future in China.
Related:
Chinese investors buying stake in Cavs
Spring Training in Beijing
Baseball coach breaks with Olympic gag order
Tags: baseball, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang, MLB
Chinese investors buying stake in Cavs
Monday, 25th May 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (1)
UPDATE: According to Titan Sports news (in Chinese, here), Huang and company's stake is to be 15 percent. The same story says some overzealous Chinese speculators are musing on the chances of bringing Yao Ming to Cleveland.
Forget about snapping up cheap U.S. real estate--Kenneth Huang and his cash-rich Chinese partners are about to make history and change the game for the Cleveland Cavaliers by purchasing a stake in the NBA franchise.
As first reported by Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a group of Chinese investors has reached a deal to buy a stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers, pending league approval. The man behind the deal is Kenneth Huang (Huang Jianhua, or 黄健华). The best background reporting I've seen on Huang comes from the Plain Dealer (read it here). The report says that Guangzhou-born Huang studied at Columbia University, St. John's University and New York University, and gives this snapshot of his career in sports business:
"As a partner in Sportscorp China, which has a U.S. base in Chicago with well-known sports consultant Marc Ganis, Haung became a leading dealmaker with pro sports teams. He's worked deals with the New York Yankees, the Houston Rockets and USA Basketball by creating deals with Chinese sponsors."
If you're a Cleveland Cavaliers fan who wants to see your team keep its superstar, this looks like great news. It doesn't take much dot-connecting to understand that this deal could give James an excellent marketing platform in China, an opportunity that might be lucrative enough to keep him in Cleveland when his contract comes up in 2010. In addition to some guanxi in whatever industries, cities and government departments the new part owners are active, he'd benefit from the intangible benefit of pride and interest that lots of Chinese fans will no doubt take in this ownership situation.
Kobe Bryant has had a pretty good lead on Lebron in popularity in China over the past year or two, but it seems this deal could help this year's MVP squash that in a hurry. What could be cooler than Kobe and Lebron facing off in the NBA Finals this year? How about the league's two biggest stars facing off in the Chinese market over the next 10 years? I'll watch.
Kenneth Huang image: Hudong.com
Tags: basketball, Cleveland Cavaliers, Huang Jianhua, Kenny Huang, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, NBA