Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba's financial arm Ant Group announced on Tuesday that it has entered a comprehensive strategic partnership with NBA China that would see the two parties cooperate in areas like video content, program broadcasting and membership.

The collaboration marks the first time that fans in China have access to NBA video content on Alipay, the popular payment app owned by Ant Group, and makes Alipay a strategic partner of NBA China in the field of digital life.

The collaboration with the professional basketball league's Chinese arm will also cover areas including joint marketing campaigns, digital collectibles, and social responsibility initiatives to engage fans and communities, Ant Group said.

Last week, NBA China launched an NBA channel on the Alipay platform, with a range of user-generated content created by NBA China's network of influencers and Alipay's authorized content creators.

"Bringing NBA's high-quality content and content creators into our platform is an important step for Alipay to embrace the content ecosystem as an open platform," said Ni Xingjun, chief technology officer of Ant Group and chairman of Alipay.com Co Ltd.

"We will also leverage Ant Group's technology and platform capabilities and work closely with the NBA to explore creative digitalization models in service sector, joint operations of membership and innovative interactions," Ni said. He later added that they hope to build a young digital interactive platform for NBA fans in China and bring new services and interactions in sports to the digital era.

Going forward, NBA China and Ant Group will continue to collaborate on digital engagement initiatives, including digital collectibles.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn