SBC News Fenway Games launches in China with HQ Sports

Fenway Games launches in China with HQ Sports

SBC News Fenway Games launches in China with HQ Sports
Peter Gough – Fenway Games

Fenway Games has announced its biggest deal to date which will see the company’s SnapPlay product launched into the Chinese sports market via a deal with Chinese social sports platform HQ Sports.

The deal will see Fenway provide a social version of its instant-betting app which will be distributed via HQ Sports’ MiaoHi social sports app and its Jihai app, a match analytics and information site for sports fans and sports-lottery users. HQ Sports claims an audience for its content of over 400 million.

SnapPlay is a version of Fenway games’ Snapbet product. The games are based on users predicting what happens in the next 60 seconds of the game they are watching.

HQ Sports was formed in 2016 and is headed up by former Manchester City star Sun Jihai. The company is is backed by China Media Capital and other investors such as social gaming giant Tencent and the Yuan Xun Fund.

Fenway games founder Peter Gough said that HQ Sports were impressed by the inherent fan engagement of the SnapPlay product. “They like the innovation involved,” he added. “It fits well with what they are aiming at with their apps in terms of giving football fans prediction games, videos and chat.”

Gough said Fenway will be looking to launch SnapBet in the coming months with a European sports betting operator in parallel. Although the games are initially for the English Premier League, Fenway will expand the offering to include basketball, cricket, and eSports in future.

Said Gough: “HQ is particularly keen on a basketball version of the app. The NBA is huge in China. And we are looking at eSports. We will be producing a version of the app for Counter-Strike.”

Sun Jihai, chairman and founder at HQ, added: “HQ are always looking for engaging sports products. We were impressed with Peter and his team, and their vision of bringing instant and real-time entertainment to football fans fits perfectly with our vision for MiaoHi. We are delighted to be working with such an innovative company.”

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