China's companies show at World Cup
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The World Cup is not only for football players but also a business arena for world-class companies. For the first time, a Chinese company, Yingli Green Energy, has entered the sponsorship big leagues.
Yingli Solar was little known even in China before the tournament, but after two weeks amidst questionable calls and dramatic goals, its sun logo has been seen by football fans around the world.
According to FIFA, China recorded the largest television audience for the World Cup opening ceremony and averaged nearly 24 million viewers for the Greece-South Korea match on June 12. Statistics from the Chinese-language search provider Baidu.com showed searches of the Yingli up 425 percent on June 14.
Yingli was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Baoding, north China's Hebei Province. An energy-based investment management and international enterprise group, it designs, constructs and sells solar panels, and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on June 8, 2007.
Yingli's sponsorship deal allows it to show its logo on electronic perimeter boards at all 64 World Cup games. The slogan appears at 30-second intervals that total eight minutes each game. The company will provide solar power to 20 soccer training centers across Africa. Yingli also has advertising rights in the stadiums' vicinity.
Yingli has been involved in football for several years. It spent 1.8 million euros to sponsor the Spanish Premier League team Osasuna in 2007, a move credited with helping open the Spanish market.
Following Yingli's example, Harbin Beer also has a presence at the World Cup in South Africa. Anheuser-Busch (AB), the former US brewer recently purchased by Belgium's Inbev, acquired 99.66 percent of Harbin in 2004. AB's Budweiser has been the football tournament’s official beer for 24 years, so Harbin Beer was included as one of the official beers for this year's Cup.
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