The UFC has partnered with Toutiao, Chinese content discovery platform, aiming to enhance fan engagement in the country with a new touchpoint to access bite-sized content on-the-go, including shareable localised videos, photos, messages, and graphics.
Demand for UFC in China continues to grow at an exponential rate, paving the way for local UFC stars such as, no. 7 ranked UFC women’s straw-weight Zhang Weili, UFC bantamweight Yadong Song and veteran UFC welterweight Li Jingliang to capture the hearts of sports fans in China.
UFC Senior Vice President Asia-Pacific, Kevin Chang commented: “Diversifying how our consumers consume and interact with UFC content is key to our continued growth in China. We are honored to be on this exciting journey with Toutiao, their pioneering platform is perfectly aligned to our remit of innovatively reaching fans across China with the very best sports content.”
This partnership comes after UFC pledged its continued expansion in China with its objective to build a rich and diverse MMA ecosystem. Later this year the UFC Performance Institute Shanghai will open its doors in the Jing’An district providing the professional sports community with a multi-million-dollar state-of-the-art facility.
Commenting on the importance of the launch to Chinese sport, Hong Fei, General Manager of Content Ecosystem for Toutiao stated: “Sports has been one of the favourite categories for both users and creators on Toutiao and we are so happy to join hands with UFC in providing Chinese sports fans with quality UFC content.”