College sports on the rise in China

Exciting moments, fun activities, athletes battling it out, and teammates reveling in victory. These are not exclusive to the American NCAA or the Japanese Koshien, but are also common among Chinese University Basketball Association (CUBA) games.

Amid the thunderous applause of the audience, the CUBA, China's most competitive and popular college basketball competition, wrapped up its Southeast Division finals on April 18 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, with Xiamen University and the China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT) winning for men and women, respectively.

This is the Xiamen University men's team's eighth win in this year's CUBA series. The team defeated all of its opponents, including Ningbo University and CUMT. The team once again secured its title as "King of East China" with an 87-75 victory over East China Normal University on April 18. Two hours before Xiamen University's victory, young college girls from CUMT defeated Shanghai Jiaotong University 64-60.

The CUMT stadium was jam-packed with university students and basketball fans from across the city of Xuzhou. Those who couldn't make it to the venue watched the matches online on Youku, which offers live broadcasts of CUBA matches. Almost a million people tuned in to the CUBA matches online this year.

"I don't really have time to go watch basketball games due to my rigorous academic schedule. But I really like the atmosphere of the home court," said Jing Chenyang, a senior at CUMT who came to support his school's girls' basketball team.

"CUBA games really impress me. They are well-organized with high standards," Jing added.

CUBA matches attract huge numbers of online and offline spectators like Jing, demonstrating the association's immense popularity and commercial value as China's No 1 sporting event. The matches feature a home and away system, event planning, marketing and media promotion.

In October 2018, Alisports, the sports arm of internet giant Alibaba, acquired the seven-year exclusive operation rights for CUBA at a price of 1 billion yuan ($150 million).

Since the acquisition, Alisports has begun rolling out a series of reforms to bring CUBA, adored by 27 million college students from more than 1,200 schools across China, to a new level.

In addition to its CUBA dealings, in early October 2017, Alisports signed cooperation agreements with the Pac-12 to introduce 175 games to China. It also signed agreements with the China University Football Association (CUFA) and the China University Marathon Association (CUMA), making it the largest operator of university sports in China.

Sports are important to both education and culture. We are developing university sports due to the increasing number of government policies highlighting sports reform, as well as young people's openness to new things, said Wei Quanmin, vice-president of Alisports.

Developing an interest in sports among youth is beneficial to China's sports industry, and fosters a campus sports culture, said Wei.

In the NCAA, many of the best players have become basketball superstars, such as Anthony Davis, who led Kentucky University to a national championship in 2012 and was named "Most Outstanding Player" that year. He went on to become a respected NBA player.

The sports industry is like a pyramid and top players will always inspire others, much in the way that Yao Ming and Li Na are basketball and tennis icons in China. We will provide top CUBA players with top-notch training, high-level matches and opportunities to be recruited by the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association), said the Alisports vice-president. He also noted that his company will focus on the base of the pyramid, striving to attract more people to university sports as well as forming a campus sports market and unique campus sports culture.

Wei said that Alisports will cooperate with other arms of Alibaba, including Taobao, Tmall, Alipay, Youku and Alibaba Cloud, integrating their business models, internet and e-commerce philosophies and advanced technology to further develop CUBA and promote sports consumption, a key goal of the company.

CUBA is growing increasingly mature, despite lagging significantly behind the NCAA and Koshien tournaments. However, current CUBA matches meet the high standards of the CBA.

CUBA is entering a new era, and it needs support from all sides, said Wei, adding that they will continue to promote enthusiasm for university sports and turn CUBA into a respected sporting event with Chinese cultural characteristics.