The following was written by Joe Favorito. Joe has over 30 years of strategic communications / marketing, business development and public relations expertise in sports, entertainment, brand building, media training, television, athletic administration and business. He is a producer of award winning and cutting edge programs designed to increase ROI and minimize cost.
The Mailman Group came out this week with their most influential sports brands on Weibo (which if you don’t know is the Chinese equivalent of what Twitter is elsewhere), and it points to the rising level of casual engagement in global sport that a curious and engaged Chinese audience is following.
It is certainly not easy, and it takes a great deal of understanding, boots on the ground, and time to engage in China, with a lot of risk outweighing reward when it comes to ROI at least for the short term. However for some select brands, those who have invested with both manpower and technology as well as product, there is a growing payoff.
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Some of the tidbits offered up:
There are now over 1,200 official sports organizations on Weibo – an 18% year on year increase.
Teams: While some U.S. teams, the Golden State Warriors for example, are dedicating resources to Weibo, the soccer clubs of Europe continue to dominate. Liverpool FC are ranked as the #1 most influential European football club on Weibo, ahead of Bayern Munich (who is just starting their footprint in China), Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. Amongst teams themselves, Guangzhou Evergrande is king, followed by Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Beijing Guoan and Manchester United.
Leagues: The NBA’s presence on the ground as a business unto itself has paid off much more than any other U.S. based league. They lead all social presence on WEIBO, with the CSL, the Premier League and the Chinese University Basketball League following.
Also like twitter, hashtags rule and the NBA has the two most engaged hashtags of the year, with a combined 9.1 billion reads.
Athletes: Ironically hyper-local continues to be key, as the only non-Chinese athlete ranked in Weibo’s top 10 most influential sports stars was Shanghai Sharks star Stephon Marbury at number six. The rest of the list is all Chinese-specific, although one would think Kobe Bryant, who will invest more branding time when he leaves the Lakers at the end of the season, will find a way to better engage.
The study is an interesting slice of time into the Chinese market, and the issues and opportunities that still exist for western sports brands, teams and athletes. The point of engagement remains complicated in the social space, and the ROI for young consumers in China is still a bit in flux, but is obviously growing. How this list will change in an Olympic year, and as more leagues and brands spend money against the market…the Pac 12 taking games to China for example…will make Weibo engagement even more noteworthy in 2016, with this benchmark of 2015 one to look at. The other question is can American brands use this influence scale as a way to spend money locally in China?
Are Chinese soccer clubs and basketball teams a new worthwhile spend? It is certainly tricky but may be yet another opportunity for ROI as the global sports world shrinks with every passing month.