The National Football League (NFL) has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Sina Weibo, one of the largest social media platforms in China.
In addition to the six (6) regular season games aired late in the regular season, Sina Weibo broadcast live in China the final Sunday night football week 17 game and the three (3) playoff games and will broadcast the superbowl live.
“We are pleased to launch this strategic partnership with the NFL,” said Zhang Zhe, director of Sina Weibo Sports. “We look forward to helping the NFL expand its Chinese market and explore more business opportunities, while providing our Weibo users with a better opportunity to quickly watch and share live games and highlights. We strongly believe that social media is an essential platform to promote and consume domestic and international sporting events.Sports+Social will become a key industry driver.
“Sina Weibo is a great partner for the NFL as we engage fans across mainland China. We are thrilled to work with Sina Weibo to bring NFL games to millions of fans. We are confident this will be a valuable long-term partnership for the NFL and our sponsors in China,” said Richard Young, General Manager of NFL China.
Sina Weibo is one of the most popular sites in China with 132 million daily active users (DAU), 297 million monthly active users (MAU) and market penetration similar to that of Twitter and YouTube in the US. On average, 100 million messages are posted on Sina Weibo every day.
the NFL now has over 1.5 million viewers online China each week and the audience continues to grow. Moreover, on average, there are more than 5 million views of NFL clips in China every week. Many people watch games played early in the morning via “in game” video clips.
In addition to live streaming NFL Games, sina will also have rights to out-of-game Video On Demand (VOD) clips, highlights and other NFL video content, including Top 10 Performances of the Week, Top 5 Runs and Takes, and more.
With this partnership, the NFL further expanded its digital presence in China, make the most valuable content in sports and entertainment even more accessible for Chinese users on multiple digital platforms.
About the National Football League (NFL)
Founded in 1920, the National Football League (NFL) is called “one from america‘s Best Managed Companies“ and is admired for its structure, core values and innovative policies that promote athletic competition at the highest level. With 32 teams located across the United States, the NFL is the No. 1 sports league in America, outranking the NBA (basketball), MLB (baseball) and NHL (hockey) combined as people.‘is preferred.
NFL content has never been more popular in the American media landscape. According to the Nielsen Company, 199 million people watched the 2015 NFL regular season, representing 78% of all TV households and 67% of potential viewers of US NFL games. all programming in 2015. The NFL‘s championship game, the Super Bowl, is the most-watched program in American television history and has also become a popular international sporting event broadcast in more than 170 countries and territories and in nearly 25 languages.
About NFL China
NFL China was established in Beijing in October 2007, demonstrating the NFL‘s long-term commitment to China and is a milestone in the NFL‘continuous efforts to promote his game worldwide. In China, the NFL aims to grow its fanbase, increasing fans’ greed and passion for the game through strategic cooperation with national and regional media partners and targeted marketing efforts around flag development. football and experiential events for fans. Research from Kantar-CSM China shows that there are more than 19 million people interested in the NFL in China, mostly in Tier 1 cities. Of these 19 million, there are about 1 million passionate fans of the NFL. The NFL fan base in China has grown by 1087% over the past 5 years and research shows that the NFL logo is well recognized and is strongly associated with quality and authenticity.
