- Vivian Xia joins REBEL FC as Sponsorship
Director, bringing with her a wealth of experience that includes 16 years at The
Nielsen Company
- Ophelia Yao
comes onboard as Sponsorship Manager, having previously worked at AVIAREPS
Group and IMG
SHANGHAI, CHINA – Media OutReach – 5 August 2020
– REBEL
Fighting Championship (REBEL FC), a dynamic fightainment company, is not letting the COVID-19 pandemic get in
the way of its goal of becoming the first MMA promotion from Southeast Asia to
produce a full-fledged Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) reality show in China and
develop the next generation of China-grown MMA superstars.
REBEL FC already has
an ace in place with famed Chinese director Xie Dikui, as the executive
producer of the planned MMA reality show. Xie is a household name for his work
on one of China’s biggest reality shows in the past decade, Where Are We
Going, Dad? (Chinese: 爸爸去哪儿; pinyin: Bàba qù nǎr), on Hunan Television, which debuted in 2013 and is currently being filmed
for the sixth season. He was the director for the series’ first (2013), second
(2014), third (2015) and fourth seasons (2016), as well as two movie
adaptations of the series. The series attracted an average of 75 million
viewers per episode every week and an astonishing TV viewership of 190 million
people in the 2015 season finale.
REBEL FC’s Top Guns: Vivian Xia
REBEL FC’s Top Guns: Ophelia Yao
“Just like any
programme on terrestrial TV or streaming platform, the sponsorship team behind a
programme is its bedrock. Hence, REBEL FC is pulling out all the stops to
recruit the best in the business to give its reality show a strong boost.”
explains Justin Leong, CEO of REBEL FC.
“Our reality show
ties in with the REBEL FC’s core value of empowerment. We will empower our
fighters in and out of the ring as well as during and after their fight
careers. We want to empower our gym and brand partners. Our new sponsorship
colleagues will work towards a holistic partnership with our sponsors where
everyone will benefit — from everyday men and women who will be inspired by the
tales of the fighters’ determination to succeed against all odds in the reality
show to our brand partners who will be able to communicate the empowering
aspects of their products and services to the mainstream viewers,” emphasises
Leong.
Vivian Xia, who
joins REBEL FC as sponsorship director, is the promotion’s most significant
appointment to date. She spent most of her career from 1999 to 2018 — 16 years
— at The Nielson Company, a global marketing research firm headquartered in New
York City, USA. Nielsen’s possibly best known creation is the Nielsen ratings,
an analytical system that measures television, radio and newspaper audiences in
their respective media markets.
The highlight of her
work with Nielsen was building up a sports and entertainment department for the
company from 2016 to 2018 as Associate Director. This new department is
responsible for the business and product developments of the sports industry in
China. Major clients she managed with this new department were Hebei China
Fortune Football Club (image branding to fans), Tencent Sports (evaluation of NBA
sponsor exposure in the media), HUPU (industry prospect evaluation), Foshan
Xiqiao Marathon (event performance evaluation) and JD (sports goods industry
research).
From 2018, Xia went
on to join OCEANS Sports & Entertainment Inc. as its Vice President. OCEANS
is one of the leading sports marketing agencies in China specialising in
integrated sports marketing, event organisation and promotion, sponsorship
development, and building relevant relationships across China’s fast-growing
sports industry. At OCEANS, she was responsible for managing new businesses in
the country. A major client she handled was ADK, whom she facilitated to
successfully obtain the title sponsor of the WTA Final in Shenzhen in 2019.
Joining Vivian Xia
is Ophelia Yao, REBEL FC’s sponsorship manager, who has experience from IMG, a
global events and talent management company headquartered in New York, USA,
under Endeavor Group Holdings. Endeavor is best known for acquiring UFC in 2016
for 4 billion USD.
At IMG, Yao was Sales
Support & Client Servicing Manager at IMG Golf Asia, focusing on client
relations and servicing for the WGC-HSBC Champions project, building corporate
partnerships with Mercedes Benz, WeChat, Dell and TutorABC.
“It is an honour for
me and Ophelia to be a witness and participant in innovative sports marketing with
REBEL FC’s planned reality show. I think it is an exciting platform to
communicate MMA as a professional sports in the language of mass entertainment
that will resonate with the mass audience in China. The attributes of MMA
conveyed through the reality show can encourage positive thinking and
enterprising fighting spirit as well as revitalising national pride in everyone
in China,” elaborates Xia.
We hope to inspire
more innovative ideas for event operations and make REBEL an industry benchmark
and leader not only in China but around the world in the time to come,” she
adds.
With Xia and Yao
onboard, REBEL FC adds another milestone in its course towards bringining its
ambitious MMA reality show into fruition.
For more information on REBEL FC, please visit www.rebelfightingchampionship.com
About REBEL Fighting Championship
REBEL Fighting Championship is a dynamic fightainment
company, committed to bringing exciting and engaging mixed martial arts and
live event entertainment to our customers around the world. We are focused on
pursuing the highest standards of excellence in our live event production, MMA
talent development and promoting awareness of MMA.
Founded in May 2013 and headquartered in
Singapore, the company comprises a group of vibrant and creative professionals
with diverse backgrounds in production, marketing, business development, event
management, public relations, and MMA matchmaking.
