IOC: Chinese Alibaba (e-commerce) is "TOP" worldwide Olympic partner for 2017-2028

Alibaba, the Chinese group specialising in e-commerce, has become a Worldwide Olympic Partner of the IOC, on 19/01/2017. This partnership, the top level in the sponsorship hierarchy of the International Olympic Committee, covers eleven years (2017-2028) and is valued at more than $600m (€562m at 20/01/2017) for the period by the British and American media.

By joining the global sponsorship programme "TOP" (The Olympic Partners), Alibaba becomes the official partner of the IOC in the categories of cloud services and online commerce, and a founding partner of the Olympic Channel, the media platform of the Olympic Games.

These rights will give Alibaba a global focus starting from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang (South Korea), and then including the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (Japan), the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing (China), and the Winter and Summer Olympics of 2024, 2026, and 2028, for which the host cities have not yet been designated.

The partnership was announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), with Thomas Bach, IOC president; Jack Ma, founder…