NBA hires local Microsoft boss to lead China push
19/09/2007 |
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The National Basketball Association has hired the head of Microsoft's China operations to lead a new push into a country that is already its largest market outside the United States, the league said on Wednesday.
The NBA said Timothy Chen would head a new subsidiary that will fold in all of the league's businesses in Greater China.
Microsoft said on its Web site that its global vice president, Zhang Yaqin, would act as Greater China chief while it sought a permanent replacement for Taiwan-born Chen.
"Tim is the ideal person to lead NBA China as we expand our infrastructure and operations to meet the growing interest from fans and consumers throughout the region," NBA Commissioner David Stern said in a statement.
Popularized by Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets, basketball vies with soccer as China's most popular spectator sport.
The NBA said 20 percent of the traffic on its Web site comes from China, where it sells its merchandise to fans through 50,000 outlets. It estimates as many as 300 million Chinese people, nearly one in four of the population, play basketball.
The New York Times quoted Stern as saying in an interview that the NBA would own 90 percent of the subsidiary and would sell 5 percent stakes to a U.S. media company and to Chinese investors.
The newspaper, citing a person with knowledge of the negotiations speaking in June, identified the media firm as Walt Disney Co, which owns sports channel ESPN and the ABC network.
Chen, who was chairman of Motorola China before moving to Microsoft in 2003, has successfully encouraged the Chinese government to buy legitimate Microsoft software and to crack down on pirated copies.
In July, a long-running probe by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Chinese police netted $500 million of fake software, including products of Microsoft.
Chen said he saw enormous business potential in NBA China spanning media, merchandising, marketing, events and new initiatives, according to the NBA statement.
The NBA, whose new push comes less than a year before the Beijing Olympics, is holding three pre-season games in Macau and Shanghai next month.
(Source: Reuters)
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