The Pac-12, a conference that has won more NCAA National Team Championships than any other conference in history, plans to make history again. On November 14, Washington will play Texas at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai, China, in a non-conference regular season game. It is the first regular season game played there by any American sports league ever.
So why China? For starters, it is estimated that 300 million people in China play basketball. It is a regular part of Chinese life, and has become a staple at university campuses and even government offices. Michael Hurwitz, writer for yoyochinese.com, reports the NBA has already done a lot to cultivate the culture of basketball in China by installing nearly one million basketball courts all over the country. They are ready, and so is the Pac-12.
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In fact, they are more than ready. The Pac-12 has already agreed to play another game there in 2016, according to its commissioner, Larry Scott.
“Basically my vision is that this will be an annual tip-off game, the way the Pac-12 starts off every year,” Scott said. “It’ll be a premiere team against a premiere non-conference opponent, a new tradition for how we start the season.”
The Alibaba Group is the Pac-12’s newest sponsor and has agreed to cover the costs of the 2015 and 2016 games in Shanghai in a two-year deal. Also part of the deal are playing tours of the country where six teams – collegiate and Pac-12 – will be sent there to play.
Alibaba is the largest E-commerce company in the world. This partnership can have a significant impact on global sponsorship of college sports from companies overseas. It is also important to note that this is the first time Alibaba has agreed to sponsor a U.S. organization.
Although the Pac-12 is pretty hopeful that this will become a unique tradition for opening the regular season, the commissioner says it may be a little early to tell.
“It’s hard to know from a historical context to tell which are the tipping points,” Scott said. “But this feels significant to me. The fact that we are partnering with a company like Alibaba, the biggest E-Commerce company in the world, validates the vision and the significance of what we’re doing.”
The game will be televised on ESPN here in the States and will be streamed live in China by way of Alibaba’s digital and mobile platform.
Pac-12 players will be able to visit the Alibaba headquarters on November 11, which is “Single’s Day” in China, the biggest shopping day in the world. It is an opportunity for the Pac-12 to expand its brand, and collegiate sports as a whole.