NBA.com Launches Internet Site in Chinese

 

China's Leading Internet Portal SOHU.com to Host, Publish and Promote New Site, NBA.com/china

BEIJING, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NBA.com, the official web site of the National Basketball Association, and SOHU.com (Nasdaq: SOHU - News), China's leading Internet portal, announced today the launch of a comprehensive Chinese destination, NBA.com/china. The new site features audio, statistics and text content translated by SOHU, which will also host, publish and promote the site in China.

NBA.com/china, written entirely in Chinese characters, will provide fans with extensive NBA coverage throughout the season, along with the NBA All-Star Game, NBA Draft and special events, including offseason trades and breaking news. Site features include:

    * Comprehensive NBA All-Star 2003 section capturing all the excitement

      and news from Atlanta, site of the 52nd NBA All-Star Game on February 9

    * Live statistics for all games, top statistical leaders, player profiles

      on all NBA players, team standings and informational pages on every NBA

      team

    * Daily video highlights, complete recaps and boxscores for all games

    * Special basketball educational features and exclusive insider reports by

      international basketball experts from mainland China, Hong Kong and

      Taiwan

    * Interactive fan polls, photo galleries and "This Day in NBA history"

      factoids

    * Complete broadcast schedule of all NBA games and NBA programming in

      mainland China

    * Special section highlighting the NBA Store on NBA.com

"The core audiences for the Internet and the NBA in China correlate very well," said Michael B. Denzel, Vice President and Managing Director, NBA Asia, Limited. "Besides bringing the NBA and our fans in China closer together, NBA.com/china also offers exceptional new marketing opportunities for the NBA's business partners -- in China, across the region, and globally."

"As one of China's millions of NBA fans, I am very proud that SOHU will be working with the NBA to reach their many fans in China with the official web site NBA.com/china. With three Chinese players in the league, the NBA has come even closer to home for millions of Chinese fans. The official NBA site is a new milestone in the history of the NBA's presence in China, offering the most authoritative, professional and comprehensive information about the NBA," said Charles Zhang, CEO and Chairman of SOHU.

Basketball is one of the most popular sports in China, enjoying a mass following with an estimated 250 million Chinese taking part in basketball competitions, according to government officials. The NBA's popularity and television viewership have reached all-time highs in China, according to recent consumer research, as 57% of all males aged 15-64, and 63% of both males and females aged 15-24, now consider themselves to be NBA fans. National broadcaster CCTV and 13 other regional broadcasters broadcast live and delayed NBA games to tens of millions of Chinese viewers several times per week.

"As Internet usage and the NBA's fan base both continue to grow in leaps and bounds in China, this is a perfect time to launch a comprehensive Chinese version of NBA.com," said Mark Fischer, Managing Director -- China, NBA Asia, Limited. "We are very pleased to team-up with SOHU, a leader in China's Internet industry, to make NBA.com/china a reality and provide millions of basketball fans in China an all-access pass to the NBA in their native language."

"With the NBA.com/china web site we can offer SOHU users the best online basketball coverage in China, making our site a 'must'-stop for fans accessing interactive sports online. As a leading Internet company in China we continually strive to improve our products, further strengthening user loyalty and increasing usage of the entire SOHU network. This in turn will benefit both our clients' online marketing campaigns and SOHU's online consumer business development", said Victor Koo, Chief Operating Officer of SOHU. "SOHU is one of the top online media platforms for the country's young, urban population, making it a particularly suitable sports news distribution channel to reach young fans."

The new Chinese destination compliments NBA.com's four existing international Web sites that include Espanol (NBA.com/espanol), Japan (NBA.com/japan), Canada (NBA.com/canada) and the United Kingdom (NBA.com/uk). With a record 67 international players from 35 countries and territories on NBA rosters this season, the NBA is one of the most popular U.S. based sports internationally and the first, and only, professional sports league in the U.S. to offer international web destinations for fans.

Among English-Language sports league Web sites NBA.com draws the greatest number of users from outside the United States with more than 40 percent of all traffic to the site coming from international locations. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Spain are the most popular international destinations for NBA.com visitors outside of North America. Currently, 7% of average daily traffic to NBA.com comes from mainland China, more than doubling last year's daily average.

About NBA.com

NBA.com was launched in November 1995 and currently averages more than 1.3 million visitors per day with more than 40% of the site's traffic coming from fans living outside the United States. Consistently ranked among the top sports Internet sites, the NBA.com network consists of more than 60 unique Web sites including NBA.com, WNBA.com, NBDL.com, NBA team sites, WNBA team sites, NBDL team sites and five international sections of NBA.com.

About Sohu

SOHU.com is one of China's most recognized and established Internet brands and indispensable to the daily life of millions of Chinese who use the portal for e-mail, news, alumni club, short messaging services, search, browsing and shopping. Apart from continuous product and services development, SOHU.com also concentrates its efforts on making the Internet ubiquitously available to China's 58 million Netizens, whether in the office, at home or on the road. SOHU.com, established by Dr. Charles Zhang, one of China's Internet pioneers, is in its sixth year of operation.