Chinese fintech giant Ant Group & NBA launch strategic Partnership in China

Chinese fintech giant Ant Group announced a strategic partnership with the NBA league in China, in which the two will collaborate on video content, programme broadcasting, and membership.

NBA video content would be available to Chinese fans via Alipay, Ant Group's massively popular payments app, the company said in a statement.

According to Ant Group, the collaboration with the NBA's Chinese business arm will also include joint marketing campaigns and digital collectibles.

According to sources Ant Group, NBA China launched a channel in Alipay last week that displays user-generated content from NBA China's network of influencers and Alipay's authorised content creators.

The NBA is one of the most popular cultural exports from the United States to China, earning hundreds of millions of dollars per year from its presence in the Chinese market.

A decades-long partnership with state broadcaster CCTV, however, was shattered in October 2019 when then-Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of widespread protests in Hong Kong, a Chinese-ruled city embroiled in a political crisis that included months of anti-government demonstrations.

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

Basketball fans in China are watching NBA games at levels close to where they were before the 2019 rift, Reuters reported in December, citing a source familiar with the league's viewership data.