Fan-friendly future built on innovation

Ewell Zhao, general manager of Tencent Sports, one of China's premier online sports service providers, sat down with China Daily to discuss why the internet-service giant partnered with the Chinese Table Tennis Association and the national teams to showcase the week-long Marvelous12 table tennis Tournament, which is underway in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

Why did Tencent Sports joins hands with the Chinese Table Tennis Association to organize The Marvelous12 and promote the sport online?

It was coincidental. National team head coach Liu Guoliang wanted to make this year's trials different from previous tournaments, which were contested out of the public eye. Among Chinese players, the World Championships and Olymic qualifiers are even more competitive and spectacular than international competition. But the trials failed to draw much attention in past years for various reasons.

This is the first time we have worked together to make them open to the public. Tencent Sports has experience organizing sporting events and showcasing live games, so we decided to work together to make the trials more attractive.

Will The Marvelous12 become a long-term event?

We are working toward that with coach Liu Guoliang, who has always attached great importance to promoting the sport to the younger generation. Tencent's expertise is in bringing better organization of these kinds of events to the market.

Apart from professional soccer and basketball, China has struggled to develop viable qualifying competitions in other sports. We are going to make the national table tennis trials a spectacular event for fans.

Compared to previous tournaments, the opening of The Marvelous12 was more like a fashion party for the players. Was this deliberate?

The Marvelous12 is actually all about competition, but the fashion-themed opening made the players look more beautiful. It was not just about entertainment. We think the staging, lights and other facilities provide an exciting atmosphere ahead of the competition.

Tencent Sports has heavily invested in promoting sports like table tennis and basketball since the Rio Olympics. Will that be expanded to more sports in the future?

Soccer and basketball are very popular with online fans who follow the professional leagues. But there is also a group of people who are keen on watching lower-profile sports like table tennis, volleyball and tennis. They attract big numbers because China has global dominance in some of them. Once we bring more such live games online, there will be more people interested.

We are willing to cooperate with more organizations to provide wider variety for online spectators. Also, we are planning to organize more offline sports like running and basketball to promote public participation.