Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba will continue to serve as the presenting sponsor of the Pac-12 China Game after agreeing a wide-ranging two-year extension to its partnership with the US college sports conference.
The new agreement will cover the 2017 and 2018 editions of the men’s basketball game, which takes place at Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz Arena and forms part of the Pac-12 regular season.
The game serves as the flagship event of Pac-12 Global, an initiative that showcases the conference and its member institutions in China and worldwide through student-athlete exchange projects and sport.
As well as serving as the presenting sponsor of the Pac-12 China Game, Alibaba hosts the two participating teams at its headquarters in Hangzhou for high-level meetings with company leadership and a conference on Chinese culture, business and e-commerce. The Federation of University Sports of China (FUSC) will continue to serve as the game’s co-host.
Alibaba’s Alisports division will also provide support to Pac-12 in the sponsorship, ticketing, advertising and marketing sectors, as well as handling broadcast production and distribution rights in mainland China and the immediate region.
“Alibaba has proven to be a tremendous partner as we’ve grown our activities in China, and we look forward to even more collaboration as we continue to provide our student-athletes with valuable educational and cultural experiences,” Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said.
Joe Tsai, executive vice-chairman of Alibaba Group, added: “Extending our partnership with the Pac-12 continues Alibaba’s commitment to bring the best of the world to China and teach the world about China. This is a terrific opportunity to offer an outstanding hands-on education to student-athletes about the future of ecommerce, global trade, and Chinese culture.”
This year’s Pac-12 China Game took place on Saturday, with Stanford defeating Harvard 80-70. The 2017 game will pit the University of California, Los Angeles against Georgia Tech.
Alibaba began its backing of the event through an initial two-year deal signed in 2015.