Li Na fills a void at top of Chinese sports world
Friday, 28th January 2011 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Li and coach/husband Jiang Shan. After her semifinal win, she complained that his snoring had kept her up the night before and said he'd be banished to their hotel room's bathtub.
Li has already made history; her comeback win over world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in Melbourne Thursday made her the first Chinese tennis player to reach a Grand Slam final. Interviewed post-match, Li said her motivation in the final set was "prize money," and local news stories have focused heavily on the purse—$2.2 million AUD ($2.175 USD, or more than 14 million RMB) if she wins, and half that if she loses.
Although China's 51-gold medal performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics showed that it has its share of world-class athletes, few of these athletes have the chance to compete for millions. Yao Ming is among the NBA's 10 best-paid players, but Liu Xiang can only compete for a few dozen thousand dollars at the IAAF World Championships.
But there's a lot more than $2 million USD at stake here. If Li Na can win Saturday, and follow that up with a strong season, she should be able to rack up the endorsements from now through the 2012 Olympics in London.
Li's big moment coincides with a void at the top of the Chinese sports world, a lack of active elites. Yao Ming played limited minutes in five games, before injuring himself yet again and announcing he would sit out the 2010-11 season (though that didn't stop Chinese fans from voting him into the starting lineup at the All-Star game). Yi Jianlian is averaging about 6 points and 3 rebounds for the Washington Wizards, who have not won a road game all season. Liu Xiang was back in form en route to his Asian Games gold in November, but has yet to prove he has recovered his ability to beat the world's best. And although diver Guo Jingjing will stay in the limelight, a retired athlete makes a much less compelling pitchwoman.
IMG has handled Li's commercial activities since 2009, about a year after she struck out on her own when China's tennis federation extended to top players the freedom to set their own training schedules, handle their own business deals, and keep more of their winnings. Li has been an outspoken advocate of expanding this policy to other sports, saying last year, "It is very important for us to have the right to choose. I really mean it."
Related: All-China Australian Open final? Making history and a case for reform
Li Na to kick out snoring husband in bid to break China's duck
Li Na and husband/coach image: PClady.com
Tags: IMG, Li Na, sports marketing, tennis
China Open Starts Friday in Beijing
Wednesday, 30th September 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
World No. 1 player Dinara Safina arrives at the Beijing airport
International players coming to the IMG-produced event include Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick in the men's tournament, and Jelena Jankovic (who has a sponsorship deal with Chinese sports apparel maker Anta), Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters on the women's side. China's top players—Zheng Jie, Li Na and Yan Zi--will be making a rare professional appearance in their home country.
Tickets are available through Emma Ticketmaster (book online here, or you could probably just go to the venue and get tickets for face value or less from the scalpers who always swarm events like this. Play begins Friday at the National Tennis Center, the same 17-court venue that hosted tennis at the 2008 Olympics.
The event's biggest sponsor is Mercedes-Benz, which also puts its name on a nation-wide youth development program called Swing for the Stars. There will be $4.5 million in prize money at stake for the women, $2.1 million for the men, for a total of $6.6 million, which tournament organizers declare a record purse for a tournament in Asia. A schedule (without actual game times, only days) is available here. The qualifying rounds will be held Friday, with the main draw kicking off the following day. The finals take place Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11. Ticket prices range from 60 yuan for cheap seats in the early rounds, to 2,000 yuan for the finals.
China Open 2009 (English Web site)
Related:
Mercedes Hooking Its Star to Tennis
Dinara Safina image: ChinaOpen.com
Tags: Beijing, IMG, tennis
HSBC Champions Gets World Champ Status
Tuesday, 28th April 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The HSBC Championship is now a World Championship Golf event, one of 100 so sanctioned by the International Federation of PGA Tours. The announcement was made at a Shanghai press conference earlier today. The event's prize money will increase from $5 million to $7 million, and Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia are both confirmed to compete.The HSBC Championship will take place November 5 through 8 at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, where it has taken place every year since it started. But IMG Golf global managing director Mark Steinberg said at the press conference that it will likely move to Mission Hills, perhaps as soon as 2011.
This post relies heavily on the reporting of Shanghaiist managing editor Dan Washburn, who attended the press conference and is the only English-language writer closely following China's golf scene. His full report is here.
Tags: Dan Washburn, golf, HSBC Championship, IMG, Mission Hills, Sheshan International Golf Club, Tiger Woods
IMG signs landmark events deal with CCTV
Friday, 1st August 2008 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
That appears to be temporary situation, as sports marketing behemoth IMG Worldwide Inc has signed a landmark exclusive 20-year agreement with CCTV that gives US-based IMG rights to develop and market new sports events in mainland China, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
According to the WSJ, financial terms of the deal – which will give IMG an unparalleled competitive advantage in one of the world's fastest-growing television markets - have yet to be disclosed and the deal is expected to be formally announced on August 7.
"The fundamental purpose of the joint venture is to marry what CCTV does in China and what IMG does all over the world," the paper quotes Ted Forstmann, IMG's chairman and chief executive, as saying.
CCTV's daily audience of 680 million people is the world's largest for any network. IMG is expected to focus on developing sports events and other entertainment events around China for broadcast on CCTV.
How big is IMG? As the WSJ puts it:
"Mr Forstmann, a founding partner of buyout firm Forstmann Little & Co, acquired IMG in 2004. The company, one of the world's largest producers and distributors of sports, owns or manages more than 4,000 sporting and entertainment events, from Wimbledon to the Australian Open. It also manages the careers of many athletes, including golfer Tiger Woods and tennis player Maria Sharapova."
"If we are successful [in China], there are going to be a whole lot of events that exist that do not exist today," Mr. Forstmann told the WSJ.
The big question is: Will IMG be able to remold China's sports industry, which is essentially a poorly organized state-owned enterprise, into a streamlined moneymaker like that of the United States? The answer is coming to a TV near you.
Tags: Australian Open, CCTV, IMG, sports marketing, Tiger Woods, Wall Street Journal