HONG KONG, July 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Whilst Euro 2020 is in full swing, leading participants in this event are also busy establishing footholds in the domestic capital market in China. The Hong Kong-listed Crazy Sports (00082.HK) is a player that one cannot afford to overlook in this euphoria.
1. Embark on its journey in the martial arts sports, Crazy Sports is introducing international professional boxing events in Hainan
Following the official launch of the “Crazy Sports” brand name, the Group recently announced signing of a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Macao New Long San Group. Under the agreement, in cooperation with International Professional Boxing Unite (IPBU), the parties will jointly organise international professional boxing events in Hainan; Macao New Long San Group, leveraging its IPBU related event rights, will be responsible for, amongst other things, capital investments in venues, boxing events, execution and promotion to land the authorised boxing events in Hainan, where there will be hundreds of international top professional boxing matches to be held in the coming three years from the date of signing the agreement. The first event is scheduled to be held in Macao within this year.
When it comes to professional boxing, Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, two world-famous boxing champion players, immediately come into mind. They were emerged from a mature and perfect sports events operating mechanism which has gone through more than a hundred years of development and consolidation, based on which many professional events in other sports categories are being organized. In China, with boxing stars such as Xu Can, Zou Shiming and others being launched one after another, professional boxing quickly landed on the radar screen of members of the public. However, due to history and many other complex factors, development of professional boxing in the domestic market in China is still at a relatively early stage.
However, an important turning point for the industry emerged at the end of last year. On 12 November 2020, the China region of the World Boxing Association released a 109-page rule guidebook for professional boxing in China, providing a template for professional and orderly development of boxing tournaments in the country, a progress conducive to attracting capital to accelerate the pace of development for the industry.
Precisely due to the protracted development in the earlier stages, the professional boxing market in China is still commanding huge development potential. As martial arts have thousand years of history in China, they have ascribed rich cultural heritage and accumulated a huge fan base. Data available in the public domain show that at present there are about 300 million martial arts enthusiasts in China, and habitual marital arts event TV program viewers account for nearly 20% of the country’s population. With their ability to deliver satisfying visual experience and a strong market appeal, combat sports have a huge audience base and mature channels for monetization, culminating to their positioning as the “diamond track” in the international sports market.
With the strong support policies at the Central Government level and the inflow of capital, the boxing industry in China has gone through a decade of rapid development. According to research data from Zhiyan Intelligent Research Group, the boxing industry in China grew from RMB7.5 billion yuan to RMB28.8 billion between 2010 and 2018. At the same time, the total number of Tier A events soared from 20 matches to more than 200 matches in a year. There were some 1,582 boxing matches being hosted in China in 2018.
From this perspective, Crazy Sports’ embark on its journey in professional boxing, with the endorsement from IPBU, is intended to tap opportunities afforded by the rapid development trend in this area in China, fuelling the increasing popularity of professional boxing among the mass public.
In addition, under the agreement Macao New Long San Group is the sole business partner of Crazy Sports for holding professional boxing events in Hainan, and Crazy Sports is also the sole business partner to provide interactive entertainment services surrounding the forthcoming professional boxing events in Hainan. With the successive introduction of other competition events in the province, an exclusive cooperation arrangement will ensure better certainty and potential for the parties to enjoy growth in the future.
2. The three major business segments are taking shape, setting to benefit from the strong growth momentum in their respective areas
Since the strategic restructuring was announced in the fourth quarter of last year, Crazy Sports has targeted at the digital sports entertainment market and accomplished solid progresses. Since then, it has been developing the three major business segments based on digital technologies including big data and blockchain, with “Events + Quizzes, IPs + Mobile Games, Crazy Red Insights + Lottery Sales” as the core drivers.
Specifically, on the one hand, Crazy Sports has entered into Hainan, joining forces with HuoChain Technology of Huobi Group to establish a sports quiz platform with blockchain and big data as the backbone technology, to reap full benefits from the sports event IPs by hosting offline international professional boxing matches to boost user data flow and branding for the platform. On the other hand, Crazy Sports holds the official IP resources including Chinese Super League and FIFPro, and continues to generate official IP gaming contents. In addition, as a sports intelligence analytics platform for lottery players, Crazy Red Insights APP has a competitive advantage in the field of analysis and predictions of sports events in football and basketball matches. At the same time, the Group has accelerated the pace of expanding offline lottery sales channels in recent years, exploiting further synergies with the online sports communities.
Against the backdrop of China’s national strategy to speed up establishing itself as a leading sports nation, the domestic sports industry is embracing digital transformation, major events such as the “Euro 2020” are being staged one after another, and Hainan Free Trade Port is on the fast lane of this comprehensive construction trajectory. In this array of high growth areas, Crazy Sports has set its strategic goals and tactics, it is full of potential when it comes to monetisation of all activities.
Today, Crazy Sports has explored a new professional boxing racetrack, highlighted by launches of its “Events + Quizzes” segment that constituted an important part of its involvement in the digital sports entertainment market. Through the use of its proprietary sports big data, block chain technology and platform advantages, combining with traditional sports events, Crazy Sports empowers sports events, promotes rapid development of its businesses aiming at achieving more efficient operations and profitability.