Coinbase Signs Up As Latest Partner Of Team Liquid

Brian Armstrong, founder of Coinbase, thought about expanding a frontier offering a new path to acquire freedom in the world. The vision for employing that power built one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange markets, innovating ways in a shifting market to keep power in hands of people, not highly capitalized enterprises. Team Liquid started from a belief that athletes, teams and esports could represent far more to the world than a niche interest. As esports rapidly changed to now form a core sports entertainment in the world, Steve Arhancet and Victor Goossens focused on partners who value working beyond limitations. Foundationally promoting efficiency, innovation and equality, Coinbase’s interest in the fairly new, rising and full-of-potential landscape of esports brought them to us.

Team Liquid and Coinbase embark on a four year partnership, collaborating on events to offer our community actionable opportunities to participate in competition, fandom and fun.“When we were looking for a potential partner in the crypto space, it was really important that we found someone that was doing it the right way, the Team Liquid way,” says Steve Arhancet, Co-CEO of Team Liquid. “A partner who had real infrastructure in place that’s built to last, who possessed trusted expertise and nuance in this new, complex world of decentralized banking and finance. For us, those qualities were absolute requirements. And the more we learned about Coinbase, the more certain we became that this was the partner we were looking for. Like a lot of our fans, crypto was new to me once, but I quickly realized that it isn’t some passing fad—it’s here now, and will be in the future. Together with Coinbase, we hope we can demystify crypto for Team Liquid fans.”

Owning digital spaces isn’t a foreign concept to many within esports, whose experience in online exchanges range from in-game shops to gaming currency. As cryptocurrency exchange builds into an evolving and massive service, the technology advancement and real-world impact Coinbase offers is a strong opportunity for Team Liquid to advance technological operatives.

COVERING NEW GROUND

Cryptocurrency, its function and role, and how to use it isn’t just complicated, it’s new(ish), it’s a lot. Identifying where to even begin may feel overwhelming to a newcomer. Almost like introducing parents to a League of Legends Worlds stream. Or being a fan of an esports team.

Coinbase gets that it can be kind of a lot, especially to understand the many many possibilities of what choices to make when using it. Everything needed to understand the basics and get started shows up as an account is made.

As a crypto-newbie, the bite-sized videos (with actual cryptocurrency rewards) on Coinbase taught the basics. I couldn’t miss them, they were right on my feed. Completing these left me with a little bit of crypto and even more information to dig into. Understanding how to use Coinbase can go deep. Set up for even iron-clad “I-don’t-understand-blockchain” folk, the partnership allows Team Liquid fans to get connected to a new industry, and ready to use any cryptocurrency integrations released in the future.

While there are a range of cryptocurrency exchange platforms, the resources and team behind Coinbase offer a transparent system to learn, expand, and master the exchange. Already forming a massive marketplace, cryptocurrency allows personal investment into a new kind of frontier—and the level of investment is entirely a personal choice. The option to learn about cryptocurrency from Coinbase, in a friendly way, a Team Liquid way, broadens the scope of personal reach.

Victor “Nazgul” Goossens, co-CEO of Team Liquid, believes in greater possibilities of a decentralized market.“Crypto has the potential to distribute influence and move control away from corporations into the hands of all of us based on undeniable trust created by blockchain technology. It will play a huge role in creating a more trusting world,” he says. “There is going to be a world in the future where we can have simple trust based on code that will allow us to take for granted how this technology has shifted trust from corporations to a more transparent system.”

To familiarize the Team Liquid community with the Coinbase partnership, The Liquid+ Coinbase Experience includes content, a schedule of events, and information on how to get started with Coinbase. Sign up for free on Liquid+ for digital exclusives on all Team Liquid and Coinbase content.

A COMPETITIVE EDGE

Team Liquid cares about the long-term wins, and that means better supporting our players right now and increasing opportunities for pros to get scouted. Using ground-breaking technology, engineering and implementation, Coinbase’s reference for creating new paths in uncharted territory is tried and true.

President and COO of Team Liquid, Claire Hungate, is no stranger to forging new paths.“A partnership for us is about supercharging the TL business; developing and nurturing our athletes and fuelling the most successful rosters, building out our global infrastructure, growing our fanbase and super serving our current loyal audience, training and looking after our staff: a successful and long term partnerships gives us the ability to grow,” she says. “The connection between [Coinbase] being a business at the cutting-edge of technology and innovation and Team Liquid also innovating within the Esports space—just look at Liquid+—we can invest more deeply into our goals and innovate faster. We’re investing not only in Team Liquid’s future but the future of the esports space generally.”

That ingenuity now works back to Team Liquid where the partnership has plans to produce the very first Liquid+ Scouting Combine including a significant prize pool. Creating spaces for up and coming pros to compete and get discovered, along with support to build a lasting program are one of the competitive initiatives in the partnerships.

Liquid CS:GO is primed for special programming, new promotional events and upcoming drops within ESL. For StarCraft II, the partnership will support TeamLiquid StarLeague. Hungrybox and a few other Team Liquid faces will team up to create content, custom competitions and streams.

A LIMITLESS FUTURE

In the early days of esports the world could not have known the impact of competition and fandom could shape a new and rising culture. A culture which didn’t need a language, religion, or belief system to create a common ground of understanding. Founding Team Liquid in 2000, Victor Goossens saw it grow to re-define not only how an esports organization could affect the whole industry; the scope of where Team Liquid’s cares about impact does not have limits.“This conviction in blockchain is not so dissimilar from my innate belief in gaming and esports, which is its own generational and cultural change,” says Victor.

“While I have the utmost confidence in both industries, both also come with plenty of challenges. As a part of any exciting young industry, it can unfortunately attract many opportunistic, or sometimes even malicious, participants. We all need to look a little bit deeper however, as none of that changes the underlying value of what we are building and the good that many companies are doing. This partnership is founded on a shared philosophy of creating something stable and long term, and I believe that both Coinbase and Team Liquid will guide our respective industries in the right direction.”

Team Liquid in partnership with Coinbase are looking beyond traditional territory to create infrastructure, programs and funding for goals they believe in. In celebration of this partnership, a premier Team Liquid competitive jersey will feature a Coinbase placement. Stay on the lookout for new jerseys and find all Team Liquid and Coinbase content through Liquid+ and social.

LaLiga Agrees Eight-Season Audiovisual Rights Renewal In Mexico And Central America With SKY Sports

Following a tender process through bidding requests, LaLiga has renewed the audiovisual rights agreement of LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank in Mexico and Central America with SKY Sports. The partnership covers the rights for eight seasons, from the 2024-2025 season onwards.

This agreement represents a significant increase in the value of LaLiga’s audiovisual rights in Mexico and Central America, increasing the value compared to the previous tender. This agreement is also the result of the negotiations between Mediapro and LaLiga North America (joint venture between LaLiga and Relevent Sports, which was extended to Mexico in June 2020). Their involvement has been key to revaluing the audiovisual rights of the competition at a time when other European competitions have seen the value of their rights diminish.

This renewal also represents an opportunity for LaLiga, as well as for LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank clubs, to continue increasing their brand presence in one of the most strategic markets in the global soccer industry. This partnership will allow the league and its clubs to get even closer to Mexican and Central American audiences, through an operator that has a stable and existing long-term relationship with the league, that knows the product well, and has worked closely with LaLiga for the past ten years.

StellarAlgo Raises $16.5 Million In Series A Investment

StellarAlgo, the leading customer cloud platform for the sports and live audience industry, announced today a $16.5 million Series A funding round led by Toronto-based Carallas Holdings. Other new investors include Newbound VC, and Bleacher Report founder Dave Finocchio. The round also included follow-on investment from existing shareholders ​​Accelerate Fund II, Bluesky Equities, and InterGen Capital. To date, StellarAlgo has raised $19.0 million.

Funds will be used to continue the growth of StellarAlgo’s cloud-based solutions, which help sports and live event organizations monetize their live audiences using insights-driven sales, marketing and analytics tools. Product advancement will include investment in the company’s flagship tools, the Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Data Warehouse, to make it easier to efficiently engage fans and drive lifetime fan value. 

StellarAlgo will also use this capital to expand its offering to foster partnerships with the brands supporting these teams and leagues while extending their presence by opening headquarters in both the United States and Europe. In conjunction, the company plans to double its workforce over the next 12 months, continue to hire best-in-class data engineers, customer success, product development, sales and marketing team members.

“This funding represents a major milestone for our company and will significantly advance the industry’s ability to monetize fan bases through digital channels,” said Vincent Ircandia, founder and CEO at StellarAlgo. “Sports and live audience organizations around the world are grappling with a rapidly evolving fan, and we make it possible for these properties – and their partners – to connect with and convert the world’s most passionate audiences.”

StellarAlgo’s customer cloud platform – which includes the most modern Data Warehouse offering in the market as well as the company’s flagship Customer Data Platform – anchors the fan management activities of more than 85 sports and live audience properties and partners throughout North America and Europe, including the MLB’s New York Yankees, the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, the NHL’s LA Kings, and the US Open Tennis Championship. Live audience businesses and their partners use StellarAlgo’s suite of products to implement a data-driven, fan-centric approach to connect and engage with fans on a personalized level never before seen in the industry, using segmentation capabilities that span multiple data sources — including ticketing, email, demographics, merchandise, and CRM — to build predictive lists that take their understanding of known customer lifecycle data points to new levels and maximize the lifetime value of their fan universe.

There are over two billion avid sports and entertainment fans globally whose engagement is higher than that of any customer on the planet. Yet, these live audience properties continually rely on antiquated methods for measuring their fanbases, marketing to individual segments and converting that fandom into revenue. Regardless of where a property may be in their journey toward customer centricity, the quality of their existing data, or the sophistication level of their existing technology toolkit, StellarAlgo’s customer cloud platform allows live audience properties to reach their goals with improved pace, certainty, and agility.

“StellarAlgo is positioned to disrupt business operations for sports organizations worldwide,” said Paul Gallagher, VP Investments of Carallas Holdings. “We were very impressed with the company’s progress which has come thanks to a highly-effective management team and an unrivaled, state-of-the-art technology platform. This progress has solidified Stellaralgo’s first-mover advantage – our organization is excited to help facilitate the next stage of the company’s development.”

StellarAlgo provides invaluable insights and tools that help better monetize these fanbases. The company’s customer cloud platform is so valuable to live audience organizations that enough business was generated to be profitable in 2020, despite the pandemic effectively shutting down the live audience industry. The company has more than doubled their business every year since platform launch in 2017.

“Engagement and connection are at the heart of what every fan wants from their favorite team – no one makes this relationship more central to how properties interact with their fanbase than StellarAlgo,” said Finocchio. “This is a company that’s poised to disrupt the sports tech space with advanced technology that every organization in the sports ecosystem should salivate over.”

MSG Sports And MSG Entertainment Announce Multi-Year Marketing Partnership With BetMGM

BetMGM Named an Official Sports Betting Partner of the Knicks, Rangers and Madison Square Garden Arena.

Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. and Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. announced today a multi-year marketing partnership with BetMGM, naming the sports betting and gaming entertainment company an Official Sports Betting Partner of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers and Madison Square Garden Arena.

“We’re excited to be partnering with BetMGM – a leader in the sports betting and gaming entertainment industry – to bring them an unparalleled platform in sports and entertainment,” said Ron Skotarczak, Executive Vice President, Marketing Partnerships, MSG Entertainment. “MSG Sports and MSG Entertainment are made up of world-renowned brands that set industry standards for excellence, exposure and engagement– making us ideal partners to help drive sports betting’s continued growth.”

“We’re thrilled to see the BetMGM brand connected to a space as iconic as Madison Square Garden,” said Matt Prevost, Chief Revenue Officer, BetMGM. “New York is a critical state for BetMGM’s continued growth and I can’t think of a better way to begin our relationship with The Empire State than partnering with The World’s Most Famous Arena and their legendary team franchises.”

As part of the marketing partnership, BetMGM will receive substantial brand integration inside The Garden including courtside and ribbon LED signage, GardenVision features and basket stanchion signage at Knicks games, along with dasherboard signage and Zamboni branding at Rangers games. Additionally, BetMGM will be included in content across official Knicks and Rangers digital channels on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and BetMGM customers will receive special opportunities to participate in premium experiences at Knicks and Rangers games.

BetMGM will also be featured prominently on MSG Networks during live game coverage of the Knicks, Rangers, New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders, highlighted by a virtual blue line during Rangers games and commercials spots during game telecasts. In addition, BetMGM will appear on digital boards outside of The Garden and MSG Networks, which are on display to the millions of people who walk by The Garden every day.

beIN SPORTS Acquires Exclusive Broadcasting Rights To XV World Padel Championship In 37 Territories And Is Appointed Global Sales Partner

beIN MEDIA GROUP (beIN), the global sports, entertainment and media group, and its flagship sports channel beIN SPORTS, have acquired the exclusive rights to the long-awaited XV World Padel Championship Qatar 2020across 37 territories spanning the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Asia-Pacific and North America. Viewers across four continents will be able to watch the world’s top talent go head-to-head exclusively on beIN, as it prepares to broadcast every Center Court set – including the semi-final and final – from Monday 15th to Saturday 20th November, 2021.

beIN has also been appointed the global sales partner for the World Padel Championship, responsible for selling the rights in markets outside of beIN’s own network. beIN now fulfils the role of global sales partner for each of the World Padel Championship, France’s Ligue 1 and the Turkish Süper Lig.

This inaugural Qatar edition of the increasingly popular sport is the first time the World Padel Championship will be held in the Middle East, and the Asian continent as a whole, which is seen as a key step in the development of Padel. Organised by the Qatar Tennis, Squash, and Badminton Federation – this year’s Championship will see 320 players from 16 nations battle it out at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex, Qatar.

Throughout the week, the round-robin sets – a format in which all contestants will oppose each other in turn – will be available on beIN SPORTS with expert commentary in Arabic, English, Spanish and French.

As the tournament progresses, the global network will host a dedicated Arabic and English studio for the semi-finals (19 Nov) and finals (20 Nov). beIN’s semi-finals coverage will commence at 13:30 MECCA for the Women’s Draw, airing the first serve at 14:00 MECCA with the next two matches directly following. The Men’s Draw semi-finals will start at 18:00 MECCA, with the jam-packed day of sports concluding around 22:00 MECCA. The coveted grand finals will then follow the same format, with the three Women’s Draw finals first at 13:30 MECCA (set starting at 14:00 MECCA) with the awards ceremony following, and the Men’s Draw at 18:00 MECCA.

Commenting on the broadcasting of the XV World Padel Championship Qatar 2020, Mohammad Al-Subaie, CEO of beIN MENA, noted: “beIN’s acquisition of the World Padel Championship further demonstrates the unparalleled breadth of our sport portfolio, supported by our best-in-class analysis and programming. We are delighted to bring the power of padel to our audiences across four continents, right here from our beIN MENA headquarters in Qatar, and to grow global interest in this thriving sport. This is also yet another international sport tournament hosted by Qatar, as the country gears up to stage the biggest tournament in the world – the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM”.

Sportsbet.io Donate Bitcoin To Southampton FC Supporters In First-Of-A-Kind ‘Crypto Fan Fund’

Sportsbet.io has today announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind ‘Crypto Fan Fund’; donating 2 Bitcoin (BTC) to its partner club Southampton FC. The fund will be used to deliver a series of fan-led initiatives across the 2021-22 season, and beyond. 

Throughout the season, the fund will be used to support the causes that matter most to fans. All decisions on how and where the fund is used will be made by Saints Voice, Southampton FC’s long-standing supporter panel, who will work closely with the club and with Sportsbet.io to determine how to make the greatest impact.

The donation of cryptocurrency in this way is a major first within elite sports partnerships. Unlike traditional fiat donations, the value of the fund can shift and increase in line with the market, allowing for the potential of greater investments in future seasons. Sportsbet.io will underwrite the fund for the value of 2BTC at the point of donation, guaranteeing the club access to at least the minimum value of the fund, plus any additional profits accrued from inflation.

Potential uses of the fund could include improvements to the matchday experience through to providing much-needed assistance to local venues impacted by COVID-19. Saints Voice can also decide to retain, or ‘HODL’, a portion of the fund to invest in future seasons, to capitalise on any increase in value.

Helen Edwards, Head of Responsible Gambling at Sportsbet.io said: “Supporters are the lifeblood of the game and continue to demonstrate their unrivalled passion and loyalty every matchday. As a valued partner of Southampton Football Club, it’s incredibly important that we engage with the dedicated Saints fans and support them too, in any way that we can. 

“The opportunity to use Bitcoin in such an innovative way by setting up this fan fund is incredibly powerful. We firmly believe the hype is real and cryptocurrency is here to stay, and are excited to see how the value of the fund could continue to rise, allowing for even greater investments for Saints fans and the wider community.”

Sarah Batters, Director of Marketing & Partnerships at Southampton FC said: “Covid had a major impact on our fans’ experience of a matchday last season. Thankfully things are getting back to normal and almost all our fans have returned, so we are delighted to offer our supporters the opportunity to make their match experience even better, this season and beyond.

Working in close collaboration with the fantastic representatives on our Saints Voice panel, with Sportsbet.io’s ‘Crypto Fan Fund’ we hope to build a closer bond with our supporters by tackling some of the causes that they consider most crucial and look forward to seeing how they ultimately choose to allocate this fund.”

The donation consolidates Sportsbet.io’s ongoing commitment as the main club sponsor of Southampton Football Club, and as a leader in the crypto community. The initiative is part of Sportsbet.io’s ‘Believe the Hype’ campaign, encouraging Saints to believe the hype around their club, and around cryptocurrency.

Primark Launches New Partnership With The NFL

Primark, the international fashion retailer, is excited to announce a brand-new partnership with the iconic NFL, kicking off in selected stores this week with a stylish athleisure menswear collection.

This exciting NFL collaboration reflects Primark’s growing offering for customers in sports merchandise and appeals to demand from the rising number of international NFL fans, who want to look great both on and off the field. The seven-piece collection includes jerseys, t-shirts and sweats representing some of the most popular NFL teams including the New York Giants, Las Vegas Raiders, Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots. The Primark X NFL partnership will also include further collections across menswear, womenswear and kidswear launching in 2022, so the whole family can get involved and support their favourite team in style.

Primark’s Director of Licensing, Sarah Jackson said: “Primark’s collaboration with the NFL is an incredibly exciting milestone for us as we continue to grow our sports license offering. Our recent license launch with the NBA has been a huge hit with customers, and we know they are going to love our new NFL collection.

The NFL is an iconic global sports brand, and we can’t wait to offer customers this fun and exciting collection which looks great on and off the field.”

NFL’s Senior International Licensing Director, Salha Latif said: “We are excited to partner with Primark and expand our retail presence in fashion.  Our fans will be truly delighted with this stylish first offering and we look forward to the launch of future collections to build on the success.”

FC Barcelona To Use IMG For Southeast Asia Licensing Programme

Five-time UEFA Champions League winning football club FC Barcelona has appointed IMG as its master licensee in Southeast Asia to develop a consumer products programme for fans in the region.

Part of the club’s broader merchandising strategy and evolution into a global lifestyle brand, the multi-year deal will see IMG focus on lifestyle and fashion apparel, accessories, luggage and bags, gift and novelty, homeware and textiles, and digital and tech product categories.   

Miki Yamamoto, SVP of Licensing, IMG, commented: “FC Barcelona is one of the most recognised football clubs in the world and there’s huge untapped potential for brand extension in Southeast Asia, particularly in countries like Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, where football has always been extremely popular. This, combined with Barça fans’ unwavering passion for the club and desire to show support for their team, presents extensive licensing opportunities in the region.”

Barça Licensing and Merchandising (BLM) is working with leading companies like IMG to expand FC Barcelona’s lifestyle footprint and provide a 360-degree merchandising experience for Barça fans around the world. 

Cudos Partners With LDN UTD On ”All Access Gaming” At Samsung KX

Cloud monetisation application provider Cudos is partnering with purpose driven esports organisation LDN UTD at its latest event, “All Access Gaming”, at state-of-the-art venue Samsung KX, in partnership with the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, on November 13th. 

LDN UTD will broadcast “All Access Gaming” live on Twitch to showcase health and wellbeing in esports,  with top UK streamers and talent participating. The event will be hosted by Chelcee Grimes (@chelceegrimes 72,000 followers) and joined by creators including  ItsHaber (@itshaber 409,600 followers), Itani (@itani 960,000 followers), and pop star Connor Ball (@thevampscon 2,658,300 followers), alongside others to be announced in due course. 

Top talent will go head to head in a Fifa22 challenge and compete to showcase who is the best. Interviews will occur throughout the event with the talent on the subject of their health and wellbeing journeys, and a panel discussion will conclude the event, allowing the audience at Samsung KX and the Twitch chat to ask top UK creators about their journeys. The event will be streamed live on Twitch, at twitch.tv/ldnutd. 

“Bringing Cudos into the LDN UTD family, starting with All Access Gaming, is an endorsement for the approach we are taking as a tech led purpose driven esports org. The NFT campaign launch received a fantastic response and we look forward to building out our roadmap with the support of the Cudos infrastructure and team.” said Oliver Weingarten, Founder and CEO of LDN UTD.  

As part of the partnership, Cudos will collaborate with LDN UTD to conduct an exciting bundle giveaway for the Twitch viewers watching the event on the 13th of November. This will be a Cudo Bundle consisting of a £100 in gaming vouchers, a controller signed by pop star Connor Ball, and an Xbox gaming console. 

Over $1 trillion is spent annually on IT hardware. Yet up to 50% of the time, this infrastructure is sat there either idle or turned off. Cudos allows its users to earn whilst renting this spare compute power through the Cudos Network. To read more about the Cudos ecosystem, our mission, and progress, then click here. 

The team is joined by world-class advisors, including the Ex-President of Sony Playstation, Chris Deering and the Director of Blockchain at AMD, Jörg Roskowetz, with the same unified objective: to make better use of the world’s computing power. 

The Cudos application allows users to monetise their spare compute power by upcycling it to better use with a mission to empower people and organisations to earn by contributing to the world’s computing and making it cheaper, more sustainable and more accessible.

Cudos is always keen to hear from distributed data centres and service providers, so get in touch if you are interested. Additionally, if you want to make the most of your CUDOS tokens, you can stake them on Cudos’ platform, help secure the network, and earn rewards. 

“Esports has exploded in growth globally over the past decade, and the team at LDN UTD are at the forefront of merging the billions of global gamers with the hyper scaling NFT market. The combination of gamification and blockchain play2earn will create new communities of web3 adoption. Furthermore, they share a similar ethos of using tech for good, with a portion of their platform revenues going to the Rio Ferdinand Foundation to support youth and community development in the heart of the UK’s most disadvantaged communities” ” commented Pete Hill, Vice President of Sales at Cudos. 

WTT Signs Landmark Broadcast Deal With China’s Streaming Giant MIGU

World Table Tennis (WTT) has today expanded its broadcast footprint across Mainland China and Macao through a ground-breaking agreement with MIGU, the streaming subsidiary of China Mobile, China’s leading telecommunications company. This four-year partnership signifies a major breakthrough for WTT in terms of media rights in the history of table tennis, further highlighting the sport’s remarkable growth and burgeoning market value in recent years.

As part of the strategic partnership, MIGU will become the exclusive media partner of WTT in China, with full media rights in Mainland China and Macao Special Administrative Region, as well as exclusive production rights using new technologies such as 4K, 8K, VR and AI. At the same time, both parties will jointly formulate and release a “5G smart venue guide for WTT events” to further promote the digitalisation of table tennis events through “5G + table tennis”. The unprecedented deal also includes the opportunity to leverage MIGU’s expertise in 4K, 8K, AI, VR, and 5G, plus further innovations that will be reflected in production and other areas of WTT Events.

Table tennis fans in China can now enjoy all WTT events on MIGU Video, China Mobile Mo Bai He and other MIGU platforms. They can look forward to the much anticipated and prestigious 2021 ITTF World Table Tennis Championships in Houston, USA, starting on 23 November.

The relationship will build on the mammoth success of the Chinese team at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, where Table Tennis broke all viewing and social records inside China.

WTT Council Chair and President of the Chinese Table Tennis Association Liu Guoliang, said: “Table tennis is one of the most popular sports in China. This partnership with China Mobile MIGU will deliver more table tennis content to fans in China, so that they can watch their national heroes and favourite stars in action, anytime, anywhere.”

International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Group CEO and WTT Director Steve Dainton said: “This is a significant deal for WTT as it’s the largest deal to date in China for table tennis with such a big player in the sports broadcasting world. Through this partnership with China Mobile MIGU, WTT will be established as one of the powerhouse sports properties in China through their growing platform and, at the same time, enables us to continue with our long-term partners. We look forward to working with MIGU to welcome the new era of table tennis to our Chinese fans.”

China has long been a dominant force in table tennis, with Olympic champions Ma Long and Chen Meng currently spearheading the country’s charge on the global stage.

Fan interest in table tennis in China remains high, with the 2020 GlobalWebIndex study indicating that there are 250 million avid fans in the country, 67% of whom are millennials or younger. WTT and MIGU will work closely together to increase the volume of fans and convert them into WTT fans on MIGU’s platform.

General Manager of China Mobile MIGU Liu Xin said: “As the world’s largest communication operator, China Mobile seeks to actively build a ubiquitous and integrated computing network, develop digital intelligence innovation, and promote 5G for the public, industries and scale development. As a digital content expert under China Mobile, MIGU is committed to creating a better life for all through culture + technology. Through this partnership with WTT, we perfectly integrate exciting table tennis content with China Mobile’s extensive user base, cutting edge technology and rich experience in event operation. Together, we will work towards the digital transformation of the table tennis industry, convey China’s sporting spirit and prowess, and realise the dream of being a sports powerhouse.”

IMG manages the global distribution of broadcast rights for all WTT events and TV production coverage.