Ant Group Collaborates With NBA China For Video And Promotional Content

Ant Group, announced a strategic partnership with the NBA basketball competition. (photo: twitter @nba)

JAKARTA - Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant, announced on Tuesday 21 February that it has entered into a strategic partnership with the NBA basketball competition in China which will see the two work together in the areas of video content, program broadcasting, and membership.

Fans in China will have access to NBA video content on Alipay, a hugely popular payment app owned by Ant Group, it said in a statement quoted by Reuters. This collaboration with the professional basketball league will include a co-marketing campaign and a digital collection.

The NBA China Channel launched on Alipay last week features user-generated content from NBA China's influence network and Alipay-authorized content creators, Ant Group added.

The NBA is one of the United States' most popular cultural exports to China and generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually from its presence in the Chinese market.

However, the historic partnership with state broadcaster CCTV was disrupted in October 2019 when the former general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, tweeted support for mass protests in Hong Kong, a Chinese-ruled city embroiled in a political crisis that included months of anti-government demonstrations. -government.

Morey's tweet, though quickly deleted, was met with harsh criticism in China, and CCTV immediately stopped showing NBA games, in what became an 18-month blackout.

In December, Reuters reported that basketball fans in China were watching NBA games at about the same level as before the 2019 dispute.