On Jan 21, The Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) Football Club officially announced that Brazilian midfielder, Elkeson, joined the club, forming am attacking trio with Argentinian midfielder Darío Conca and Ghanian striker Asamoah Gyan, for the 2016 Chinese Football Association Super League (CSL).

The signing looks set to make SIPG odds-on favorite to take the title this season.

SAIC MOTOR is SIPG’s strategic cooperative partner in 2016 and the Chinese car manufacturer’s ROEWE brand will feature prominently on the team’s kit and merchandise. Sponsorship in the CSL is becoming more and more important as the popularity of football takes off in China.

In the last two years, domestic football matches have become more competitive and have attracted growing attendances. In 2014, the total annual CSL TV audience was more than 400 million (not including those attending matches) and data in 2015 shows a further increase. In addition, from 2016 to 2020, the cost of the rights to televise the CSL overtook the likes of the Premier League, NBA and La Liga, coming in at a whopping eight billion yuan ($1.23 billion).

SIPG, is only a young CSL team, but has aroused wide attention from the fans after its brilliant performance in the 2015 season; the average number of supporters at each games reached more than 20,000. The club finally won runner-up honors but hopes to go one better this year.

The huge influence of football and the rapidly improved performance of SIPG shows that the cooperation between SAIC MOTOR and SIPG undoubtedly gives the ‘best draw’ to ROEWE. Through CSL, this sports platform with a wide and growing audience and comprehensive cooperation of both parties in terms of brand publicity, marketing activity and service promotion, brand culture and the products of ROEWE will gain more attention and recognition.

Besides CLS, SIPG will attend the AFC Champions League, whose huge influence in Asia will be an important opportunity for SIPG to improve its international influence.

In 2015, ROEWE made many ‘large movements’ in product promotion and trans boundary marketing. It has sponsored “The Great Challenge” and cooperated with SIPG. From CCTV platform to CLS and AFC Champions League, SAIC MOTOR has taken advantage of the two ‘super IP’ and three platforms to accelerate improvement of the brand influence through a series of combination blows of ‘recreational marketing and sports marketing’.

Promotion of high-quality products and trans boundary marketing combination lows will make the market performance, brand notability and influence of ROEWE ascend on a new stage in the key period of ‘quality and sales volume’. Cooperation with SIPG is merely an ‘opening work’ of the whole-year trans boundary marketing of SAIC MOTOR.