Shanghai Sharks (上海大鲨鱼), the CBA team that developed the country’s most famous player Yao Ming, is now struggling after Xiyang Group (西洋集团), their only sponsor, pulled back from its five-year sponsorship plan. The Liaoning-based fertilizer manufacturer has been supporting Shanghai basketball since 2007 with 15 million RMB ($ 2.2 mln USD) injection a year into both of its women’s and men’s teams. While the company pays all the bills, the club is co-owned by Shanghai Sports Bureau and Shanghai Media Group, a state-owned media company.

Last November, Cong Xuedi, head coach of Shanghai Women’s Basketball Team, secretively allowed five of their first-team players to play for East China Normal University(华东师范大学) in the 7th National University Games after the club turned down the university request to borrow their players, a common practice for almost all universities that participated in the Games. Xiyang Group decided to fire Cong for disobeying their authority. But the coach was saved by Shanghai Technical Sports Institute (STSI, 上海体育职业学院,) a school under Shanghai Sports Bureau, as they hoped the women’s team can perform better in this year’s National Games under the coaching of her.

“It’s agreed that we’re responsible for managing the club,” Wang Bo, Xiyang’s representitive in Shanghai, told press last November, “things have been running on the contrary so far. We’ve talked with STSI and may stop sponsoring the team should the coach is kept at her post.” They did. And so with the men’s team after the regular season ended this March. A lowest paid player that used to make 10,000 RMB ($ 1,500 USD) a month at the Sharks can now receive only about 1,500 RMB ($ 220 USD) from the local sports bureau. It’s reportedly that some of the players can’t even pay their mortgage. “The reason we quited is that we don’t have the club ownership and managing right,” Qiu Guangchun, vice president of Xiwang Group told a Shanghai paper, “they should know why we quited.”

“CBA is not a professional league,” said Yang Yi, deputy editor-in-chief of Titan Sports to China Sports Review, “You wound’t expect to have a team like Bayi Rockets (八一火箭) in a professional league[CSR: the Bayi Rockets are an army team and is the only team with no foreign players in CBA.] Teams in a pro league should first be privately-held. CBA belongs to the government and it’s at most a half-professional league. And at least four CBA teams belong to local sports bureaus.”

“Xiyang’s withdrawal has nothing to do with the economic crisis. Shanghai Sharks is governed by the local sports bureau. The team had been neglected [by the sports bueau guys] since Yao Ming left for NBA. The leaders at the bureau turned their focus to volleyball as they thought the basketball team had no chance of winning the title without Yao,” Yang noted, “It’s not because of Shanghai’s team was bad or had no promising young players. The sport just lost their attention there. And to the sports bureau leaders, a businessman has only the right to sponsor the team but not to make any decision.”

Xiyang left Shanghai. But they’re planning on a comeback in Anshan, Liaoning Province. The Anshan Xiyang Basketball Club (鞍山西洋男篮) was established in 2006 and has been playing in NBL, the secondary league to CBA, for two seasons. The team recruited some good players from Shanghai Sharks’ youth team in 2007 and Xiyang hoped it can be promoted into CBA one day. “Eighteen teams are already too many for CBA,” said Yang, “I don’t think there will be any addition to the league. Rather, the basketball association might consider to cut some teams off.”

Previously:

• The Battle Between Fenglu Club And The Chinese Basketball Association
• Former NBA Player Bonzi Wells Released by Shanxi Zhongyu Club
• CBA Players and the Myth about the Ages Of Chinese Women Gymnasts

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The new CSL season will be kicked off on March 21, with Shanghai Shenhua, Shandong Luneng and Beijing Guoan are among the favorites. While the defending champion Shandon Luneng lost their midfield general Zhou Haibin to PSV Eindhoven, Shanghai Shenhua spent over $ 8 ml USD in the transfer market this winter, snatching Mark Milligan from Newcastle United Jets in Australia’s A-League and another two players from FC MTZ-RIPO, a team in Belarusian Premier League. The Beijing Guo’an FC, or Imperial Guard, received a RMB 20 million yuan (roughly $ 2.92 million USD) boost from Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sport (BMBS) this January, and Li Weimiao, head of the Beijing Municipal Football Administrative Center, the football governing body under BMBS, became vice president of Guo’an Club.

There’s been rumors that the decision makers at General Administration of Sport in China (GASC) has been discussing whether to nationalize Chinese football by getting back clubs’ ownerships. “This could be the first step of GASC’s nationalization plan,” said Nan Fang, a former Beijing Guo’an midfielder to China Sports Review, “If they do it, they’re probably going to cross the river by feeling the stones.” Nan, co-founder and coach of Beijing Langyue Football School, attributes the futility of Chinese football to bad environment, namely fixed games and bribes in the league. “You can’t whiz everything back into the 80s. Things changed.” Aside from help fund a friendly match with world champion club Manchester Utd, BMBS will also help Guo’an develop youth players in the government-funded sports schools. “This would bring more young talents into the pool,” Nan noted. “I think the problem is whether they have enough good coaches there.”

China’s FA is currently in talks with Nike for a sponsorship deal. The sportswear manufacturer is reportedly to have prepared a 10-year-long contract for the clubs, with each club in the 2009 season could get equipments worth of RMB 5 ml and another RMB 1.5 ml fund. A lot money for some, the deal might not sound very riveting to big clubs like Beijing Guo’an, who is currently sponsored by Adidas.

Previously:

• Chinese to Enjoy English Premier League for Free?
• Go West! Chinese Footballers Now Can Transfer, Finally
• China May Juguo Its Professional Football League
  

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That might be possible from 2010. According to a latest Bloomberg article, some non-media companies may bid for the next 3-year Chinese television broadcasting rights to EPL after the contract runs out with WinTV, a pay-per-view channel run by state-owned Guangdong Provincial Television. And where to watch next? CCTV. Below are some excerpts:

A group of non-media companies may bid for Chinese television rights to English Premier League matches as the world’s richest soccer league tries to gain viewers to build its brand, an official said.

The move follows the failure of the current holder, local pay-per-view television network WinTV, to attract significant subscribers and the reluctance of state broadcaster China Central Television to pay a premium for the rights, Phil Lines, the Premier League’s head of international broadcasting and media operations, said in an interview.

“I have talked to some people who are possibly putting together a consortium of advertisers who would like to buy the product and take it to free to air (on CCTV),” Lines said.

He declined to reveal the companies involved, saying only that they were “world-wide brands” in the sporting goods, soft drinks and alcoholic beverage industries. The contract comes up in 2010. If successful, the bidders would give CCTV the rights in exchange for free advertising during matches, Lines added.

WinTV was reported to have trouble financing at the end of 2008. Song Zheng, its CEO, issued an open letter via Titan Sports, saying the company is determined to win another 3-year of EPL broadcasting rights. Below are our translation:

The Future Broadcasting Rights Will Be Ours

1. We never expect a runaway success in the sector per-per-view TV by broadcasting EPL. When we were preparing and making plans, it’s never just a 3-year plan. Even in Hong Kong, a relatively successful PPV TV market, it took six years for paid EPL games to be accepted. As we’re ready for putting a long-term effort in doing this, so with our preparation in terms of capital.

2. After two years of groping, WinTV, as an innovator of PPV TV in China, has grown a lot in this department. We tried every means to provide more valued products to Chinese football fans, but not force them to pay to watch.

3. We adapt ourselves to meet the current trends. China’s digital television viewers has jumped from 10 ml to 30 ml, and we adapted ourselves to this trend (CSR note: WinTV is a digital channel.) Besides, with the issue of 3G licenses here, we’ll have more opportunities in new media. In terms of the Internet front, we turned to partnership with carriers like China Netcom and China Mobile from only Internet portals. We believe, along with many of these tight partnerships, we have a bright future.

WinTV is determined to acquire another 3-year EPL broadcasting rights.

WinTV of course can’t force fans to pay, what they did was actually cutting the prices. Their whole-year subscription fee was adjusted to RMB 588 in 2008 from RMB 1,888 in 2007. Unfortunately, Chinese football fans now have sort of a anti-WinTV sentiment. In a poll published by Yangtse Evening News (扬子晚报) about whether or not people would welcome WinTV’s enterance in Shanghai a few days ago, 45.72% of all 5687 people said they want free EPL games only, and a impressive 40.13% percent rather not to watch WinTV even they’re offered free games by the channel. These numbers will be far from pleasing to hear for the Premier League big four. Below are David Gill, CEO of Man United’s take on their exposure from the Bloomberg article:

“There has been lessons learned this year in this contract and will be addressed going forward,” Gill said in an interview in Hong Kong earlier this week. “We, along with Chelsea, along with Liverpool, along with Arsenal, have made the point. We must have better exposure.”

Europe’s other top leagues like Italy’s Serie A and La Liga in Spain are broadcast on free television, bringing those matches to far more homes. English clubs would like to reach additional fans, Gill said.

“We would prefer to have more exposure,” Gill said. “The reality is it helps us with our own business goals and other commercial aims.”

But wait a minute. Does the fans’ strong response in the poll look a bit unreasonable? Maybe not if they’re offered some alternatives. “I don’t want to pay them now that there’s free lunch everywhere,” said Mr.Zhao to China Sports Review, “Don’t you think the games are supposed to be free?” Zhao makes RMB 8,000 a month working for a Chinese magazine, a salary could well afford his weekend TV pastime provided by WinTV. But he simply won’t purchase any of their products with p2p games available online. An earlier New York Times article examined this thorn, not just for the Guangdong-based TV channel:

Major League Baseball has perhaps the most advanced online business of the major sports, and offers a season of games streamed online for $79.95, a price that league executives say will come down slightly in 2009. Robert A. Bowman, the chief executive of M.L.B.comsaid that [online] piracy hurt business, but that “it’s embryonic, it’s not widespread, and we have a distinct advantage in that we have a better product.”

Ms. Deutsch, the lawyer at the N.B.A., hosted a gathering recently of executives from other sports leagues — not just in the United States but around the world — at the N.B.A.’s offices in New York City to discuss ways of combating live-game piracy.

“We view it as an international issue,” she said.

That is not just because sports leagues abroad face the same issue, but also because the pirates themselves, the hubs of the peer-to-peer networks that facilitate the illicit streaming of live games, are mostly outside the United States. Often they are in China, where some of the most popular services started as student projects, say league executives who have tracked the digital trail of their pirated games.

Compared with WinTV, CCTV, China’s main TV broadcaster who won big last year for the exclusive broadcasting of the Beijing Games, remained low-key so far. The Chinese public broadcaster has been awarded a major package of UEFA Champions League rights at the end of 2008. Under the terms of the deal, free-to-air channel CCTV 5 will broadcast at least one live match and a highlights programme on every UEFA Champions League matchnight as well as at least one delayed match every matchweek and the UEFA Super Cup. Coverage of the UEFA Champions League on CCTV 5 will be available to over 350 million homes throughout China. In addition, all live matches from the UEFA Champions League will be available on the internet via www.cctv.com and on mobile via the CCTV mobile portal cctvsports.net.

Related Reads:

• Bloomberg：Chinese Battle Over Premier League Soccer Rights
• China Economic Net: Tiansheng wins EPL rights, but loses fans
• New York Times: Online Piracy Menaces Pro Sports
• Titan Sports:  WinTV: The future of EPL rights will belong to us (Chinese)
• Yangtse Evening News: 4o percent of fans won’t watch WinTV even it provide free games (Chinese via Netease)

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Titan Sports (体坛周报), China’s largest sports publication, on Nov. 18th ran a piece about foreign journalists offering bribe to get doping stories from Liu Xiang’s coach. Below are some excerpts:

Eight doping cases came to light in the Beijing Olympics. Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, predicted 7 more could be found after the final testing session. Olympic champions such as Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have all been questioned so far. Liu Xiang , Chinese 110-meter hurdler, who won gold in 2004 Athens Olympics and became world champion at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka in 2007, can not escape from linking with drug use either.

Gu Baogang, Liu’s first coach, said a group of reporters from 7 countries reached him in 2007, offering €100,000 Euros for any doping stories of Liu. “Have Liu ever used drugs?” asked a reporter directly. Gu said he was shocked by the question and told them “you should ask World Anti-Doping Agency for this question,” through a translator.

“Liu Xiang has never been questioned before. He went through more than 100 times of drug tests after winning gold at Athens and I haven’t heard of any questions in any occasions about him from the International Association of Athletics Federations,” said Feng Shuyong, vice-president of the Chinese Athletics Federation.

“There’s no €100,000 Euros. I was just bragging to my friends the other day. I never expect it’s been written like this,” noted Gu Baogang over a phone interview with China Interactive Sports (华奥星空), a website under the governance of the General Administration of Sport of China. “Liu has never used drugs for sure when I was coaching him. And I believe he would not do it later,” Gu continued. “There were some foreign reporters asking me questions about Liu, but there was nothing about doping at all.”

We were not in the least surprised that Gu Baogang became a target of public criticism so far. But to be honest, we’re shocked that the Titan piece got published in the first place. A group of reporters from 7 countries offering bribe together? Below are some words from our favorite read Sports Law Blog:

The rapidly changing delivery model of journalism in the 21st Century, the increasing competition among news sources, and the economic pressures and incentives (including the quest for ratings) is killing journalism ethics.

In a country where general news is now in a large part controlled and censored by the government, it seems sports journalism gets much more freedom than ever before. But for the time being, there’s definitely more people for us to care about than this kind of bribe story.

Sources:

• Titan Sports: Foreign reporters tried to bribe Liu Xiang’s coach for doping story (Chinese)
• Shanghai Daily: ‘Liar Gu’ admits he made up Liu story

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