Ant Group links up with NBA on ‘strategic partnership’ to promote sport in China as league continues its revival

Chinese fintech giant Ant Group is joining hands with the US National Basketball Association (NBA) to launch a “comprehensive strategic collaboration” in China in the latest move to elevate the sport in one of its biggest markets outside the US.

The marketing partnership, which was jointly announced by Ant Group and NBA China on Tuesday, will see the two parties create original online content and a customised consumer experience on Ant’s mobile payments platform Alipay through technologies such as blockchain, according to a press release on Ant’s official website.

Ant Group is an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, which also owns the South China Morning Post.

NBA China, which is responsible for managing all of the league’s businesses in the country, was formed in January 2008 after its first office opened in Hong Kong in 1992.

Under the deal, NBA fans in China will have access to the NBA’s video content on Alipay for the first time and services such as joint memberships, an NBA mini-program, joint marketing campaigns and digital collectibles.

“Bringing NBA’s high-quality content and engaged content creators onto our platform is an important step for Alipay to embrace the content ecosystem as an open platform,” said Ni Xingjun, chief technology officer of Ant Group and chairman of Alipay, adding that the company hopes to “build a young digital interactive platform for NBA fans in China and bring in new services and interactions in sports in the digital era”.