China Open Starts Friday in Beijing
Wednesday, 30th September 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
World No. 1 player Dinara Safina arrives at the Beijing airport
International players coming to the IMG-produced event include Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick in the men's tournament, and Jelena Jankovic (who has a sponsorship deal with Chinese sports apparel maker Anta), Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters on the women's side. China's top players—Zheng Jie, Li Na and Yan Zi--will be making a rare professional appearance in their home country.
Tickets are available through Emma Ticketmaster (book online here, or you could probably just go to the venue and get tickets for face value or less from the scalpers who always swarm events like this. Play begins Friday at the National Tennis Center, the same 17-court venue that hosted tennis at the 2008 Olympics.
The event's biggest sponsor is Mercedes-Benz, which also puts its name on a nation-wide youth development program called Swing for the Stars. There will be $4.5 million in prize money at stake for the women, $2.1 million for the men, for a total of $6.6 million, which tournament organizers declare a record purse for a tournament in Asia. A schedule (without actual game times, only days) is available here. The qualifying rounds will be held Friday, with the main draw kicking off the following day. The finals take place Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11. Ticket prices range from 60 yuan for cheap seats in the early rounds, to 2,000 yuan for the finals.
China Open 2009 (English Web site)
Related:
Mercedes Hooking Its Star to Tennis
Dinara Safina image: ChinaOpen.com
Tags: Beijing, IMG, tennis
HSBC Champions Gets World Champ Status
Tuesday, 28th April 2009 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
The HSBC Championship is now a World Championship Golf event, one of 100 so sanctioned by the International Federation of PGA Tours. The announcement was made at a Shanghai press conference earlier today. The event's prize money will increase from $5 million to $7 million, and Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia are both confirmed to compete.The HSBC Championship will take place November 5 through 8 at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, where it has taken place every year since it started. But IMG Golf global managing director Mark Steinberg said at the press conference that it will likely move to Mission Hills, perhaps as soon as 2011.
This post relies heavily on the reporting of Shanghaiist managing editor Dan Washburn, who attended the press conference and is the only English-language writer closely following China's golf scene. His full report is here.
Tags: Dan Washburn, golf, HSBC Championship, IMG, Mission Hills, Sheshan International Golf Club, Tiger Woods
IMG signs landmark events deal with CCTV
Friday, 1st August 2008 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
That appears to be temporary situation, as sports marketing behemoth IMG Worldwide Inc has signed a landmark exclusive 20-year agreement with CCTV that gives US-based IMG rights to develop and market new sports events in mainland China, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
According to the WSJ, financial terms of the deal – which will give IMG an unparalleled competitive advantage in one of the world's fastest-growing television markets - have yet to be disclosed and the deal is expected to be formally announced on August 7.
"The fundamental purpose of the joint venture is to marry what CCTV does in China and what IMG does all over the world," the paper quotes Ted Forstmann, IMG's chairman and chief executive, as saying.
CCTV's daily audience of 680 million people is the world's largest for any network. IMG is expected to focus on developing sports events and other entertainment events around China for broadcast on CCTV.
How big is IMG? As the WSJ puts it:
"Mr Forstmann, a founding partner of buyout firm Forstmann Little & Co, acquired IMG in 2004. The company, one of the world's largest producers and distributors of sports, owns or manages more than 4,000 sporting and entertainment events, from Wimbledon to the Australian Open. It also manages the careers of many athletes, including golfer Tiger Woods and tennis player Maria Sharapova."
"If we are successful [in China], there are going to be a whole lot of events that exist that do not exist today," Mr. Forstmann told the WSJ.
The big question is: Will IMG be able to remold China's sports industry, which is essentially a poorly organized state-owned enterprise, into a streamlined moneymaker like that of the United States? The answer is coming to a TV near you.
Tags: Australian Open, CCTV, IMG, sports marketing, Tiger Woods, Wall Street Journal