Reorganised V1 Group looks for expansion in China’s sport and entertainment industries

Leading Chinese sports lottery and entertainment service provider the V1 Group is looking for significant growth in the domestic market following a recent internal reorganisation.

With a new board of directors in place, as of January the Group announced that it will be concentrating its resources on developing sports lottery information services and offline lottery retail terminal business for its Crazy Sports brand in pursuit of its goal of becoming the largest sports lottery and entertainment community operator in China.

Having secured an approval from authorities to establish in Hainan a sports tournament platform and reward points system, through which quiz games on major sports events are conducted and winners will receive reward points to be redeemed into goods and services to stimulate tourism consumption in Hainan, Crazy Sports later secured official authorization from Fédération International de Footballeurs Professionels (FIFPro) to launch a soccer E-sports mobile game ‘Ace Soccer’ featuring star footballers players from 54 countries and leagues, and names and portraits of professional players, attracting reservations from more than 1 million users.

With the IP official authorisation for the China Super League secured earlier, Crazy Sports leveraged edges from the sport tournament platform in Hainan also launched a ‘Dream Super League’ game under the ‘Fantasy’ football game community.

The company has also seen Crazy Sports reach a strategic cooperation with Lakala (Beijing) E-Billing Technology & Service Co., Ltd for it to become a cooperation partner of Crazy Sports' sports lottery sales business, accelerating retail point-of-sales activity while also providing more convenient and intelligent lottery purchase services for the large lottery user base in China.

Boosting Crazy Sport's reach to more than tens of thousands retail outlets, installation of sports lottery terminals will gather pace in convenience stores in different provinces and cities to offer lottery players more convenient access to the services.

As of earlier this month, Crazy Sports also became a key enterprise introduced to the science and culture integration project segment of the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone National Service Industry Expansion and Opening Comprehensive Demonstration Zone and the China (Beijing) Free Trade High-End Industrial Pilot Zone.

With this partnership it is eligible for special financial support and green channel treatment for game version number registration from the Beijing Economic Development Zone's technological innovation research, key equipment research and development, and high-end talent introduction.

Crazy Sports now has a sports community and lottery business ecosystem that comprises Crazy Red Insights APP and Crazy Sports APP online and that integrate streaming dataflows and data sources to constitute an online content entertainment platform spanning the three major areas of sports, games, and lottery, serving a base of more than 200 million users. For offline presence, on the foundation of traditional specialty retail outlets, Crazy Sports continues to expand its network of chain convenience stores bundling terminal installation in pursuit of asset-light operation.

With a goal to reach more young lottery players, and establish a closed loop of online sports lottery and entertainment services, the Group advises that it “will continue to accelerate the establishment of its nationwide network of sports lottery retail outlets; strengthen its leading position in paid content; leverage its core platform edges to develop new online games; invest in technology and data capabilities; implement marketing strategies to increase the brand awareness of Crazy Sports; and cross-selling between online and offline sports community lottery e-commerce ecosystems to improve cash conversion.”

The renaming of the Group as Crazy Sports Group Limited is expected to be approved in a forthcoming shareholder meeting in May, setting a strong note for its businesses and profitability to escalate to the next level in the years of major international sports events in 2021 and 2022.