Barcelona Soccer Team Partners With Chinese Internet Firm To Develop Its Brand

Spanish soccer team FC Barcelona and the Chinese internet company Tencent have agreed to work together to develop Barcelona’s brand in the Asian country. They will make use of Tencent’s many social media sites to grow the team’s presence and merchandising potential in China’s burgeoning market.

Tencent will develop a Chinese website for FC Barcelona and commercialize applications and mobile games using the brand, with all content subject to the club’s approval. The Spanish soccer giant already has a strong social media presence in western markets and is looking to extend that with the Chinese sites that Tencent owns. The country’s largest instant messaging platform QQ has 900 million users, social media site Qzone has 500 million, social network Pengyou has 130 million and the “Chinese Twitter” Tencent Weibo has 300 million users.

China’s promising market is being targeted by many brands and by combining all of these social media services, Barcelona would be able to greatly increase its web presence in the country, allowing the club to reach a massive audience and increase its revenue.

Barcelona