The Super Bowl may be the most watched TV program in the US, but it's still relatively unknown in China due to the lack of popularity of American football. But the sport gained at least a few Chinese fans with its latest airing, as top executives from the likes of PC giant Lenovo (
0992.HK) and online video firm LeTV (Shenzhen: 300104) tuned in to watch this year's match-up that saw the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks.
Meantime, an executive from the struggling Sina Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) was busy criticizing rival Tencent (
0700.HK) for the latter's freeze-out of several major Internet firms from its hugely popular WeChat instant messaging platform. Finally, we'll end this week's round-up of tech executive chatter with buzz that hints a former online literature pioneer may be preparing to emerge from a forced retirement, as he returns after a tough business battle of the sort that's quite common in China.
Let's begin with the Super Bowl, which was played a week ago and found a big fan this year in Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing. Of course we need to be fair and quickly disclose that Lenovo has been a sponsor for the last two years of the National Football League (NFL), which hosts the Super Bowl, meaning his attention to the game probably wasn't motivated purely by personal interest.
Yang posted a photo of his team in a luxury sky suite at the game, though he also complained about how high the box was, making it difficult to follow the
action on the field. He apparently even tried to track the game on the Internet, but again found the speeds were too slow for
good streaming. All that effort does seem to indicate that he's indeed a fan, even though the game doesn't get much attention in China.
Meantime, LeTV chief Jia Yueting commented that the Super Bowl is more of a show than a sporting event for many people, which perhaps is why his his company chose to broadcast the match on its
China-focused platform. Lastly there was Derek Shen, China chief of US corporate networking service LinkedIn (NYSE: LNKD) who got up early to attend a local Super Bowl party and revealed he's a fan of the
winning New England Patriots.
While the Super Bowl chatter was mostly light-hearted, a series of re-posts from Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) vice president Wang Gaofei against Tencent felt more like a rant against his company's rival. China Internet junkies will know that Sina is the parent of Weibo, the fast-fading Chinese equivalent of Twitter that is rapidly losing audience to Tencent's powerhouse WeChat mobile messaging service.
