March 2007

Baseball
MLB hosted the Chinese National Baseball Team for Spring Training in the United States and, for the first time, provided an opportunity for China's National Team players to train with various Major League Clubs, alongside professional players as teammates. A delegation of 37 players, coaches and officials trained at Scottsdale Community College under the tutelage of manager Jim Lefebvre, and pitching coach Bruce Hurst. MLB has supplied Lefebvre and Hurst to lead the China National Team program since 2003, and they will lead China into its first Olympic Games baseball tournament in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (MLB Press Release, 3/13/07)

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Basketball
The William Morris Agency and NBA player agent Dan Fegan have signed Yi Jianlian, a 7-foot power forward from China, who is expected to be a top draft pick in the 2007 NBA Draft. Yi led his team, the Guangdong Tigers, to three consecutive Chinese Basketball Association championships and is ranked #7 by NBADraft.net. (Sports Business Journal, 3/18/07)

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Football
The NFL cancelled its planned pre-season exhibition game in China that was scheduled to take place in August 2007 in order to better focus its resources on the October 2007 game in London, the first regular-season game ever played outside the US. (SportBusiness.com, 3/4/07)

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Other Sports
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has agreed to purchase Japan-based Pride Fighting Championships for $65 million. Both the UFC and Pride stage MMA (mixed martial arts) bouts. (Sports Business Journal, 3/25/07)

The Chelsea Football Club has launched a Korean-language website following its five-year partnership with Samsung, which began in 2005. In January 2007, the club unveiled its Mandarin-language website for the Chinese market. (SportBusiness.com, 3/27/07)

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China
Focus Media, which is China's third largest advertising company, has agreed to acquire Chinese online advertising firm Allyes Information Technology for upto $300 million. Focus runs a network of thousand of flat screen TV's that display ads in stores, offices, theatres and apartment buildings, while Allyes is a provider of internet technology which allows advertisers to control creative production, ad tracking, targeting and performance analysis. (VarietyAsiaOnline.com, 3/2/07)

Fearful of soaring internet addiction and juvenile crime, China has banned the opening of new internet cafes in 2007. Currently, there are over 111,300 internet cafes and bars in China. (Reuters, 3/6/07)

Bear Stearns plans to form a $500 million fund to seek investments in China in a partnership with Huang Guangyu, one of China's most successful retailing entrepreneurs and founder of Gome Electrical Appliances Holding, the largest Chinese electronics retailer. (Wall Street Journal, 3/20/07)

IDG, Hearst, and News Corp. have invested in the New China Media Fund, which plans to release movies in China in theatres simultaneously with their DVD releases in a bid to stem piracy. (Digital Media Wire, 3/21/07)

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Japan
Matsuzakaya Holdings has agreed to a takeover by Daimaru in a deal valued at over $1.58 billion that would create Japan's biggest department-store chain. (Wall Street Journal, 3/15/07)