Beyer hopeful of EASL’s rise

East Asia Super League (EASL) CEO Matt Beyer came across as a visionary with a mission to grow basketball on the domestic and international levels in what he calls a “win-win” situation during a recent TV interview by Cito Beltran on Cignal TV’s One News talk show “Agenda.”

Beyer, an American who knows the East Asia market like the palm of his hand, traveled to China when he was 17, fascinated by the country of origin of his adopted Chinese brother and sister. He took up Chinese studies and journalism at the University of Wisconsin, is fluent in Mandarin and has lived in China, initially as a student, since 2003. During the 2007-08 NBA season, Beyer was Chinese star Yi Jianlian’s interpreter as a Milwaukee Bucks rookie. He’s the only foreigner licensed to act as a player agent in China with 30 to 40 percent of imports under his wing. Beyer, 35, lives in Hong Kong with his Chinese wife.

Since 2017, Beyer has organized four international basketball tournaments in Macau, the last of which was called the Terrific 12 and featured three PBA teams over a year ago. Beyer’s first venture registered 21 million viewers over a wide range of media platforms. The fourth zoomed to 117 million viewers. There would’ve been a fifth edition last year but the pandemic intervened. Beyer said confronted by the lack of traditional basketball content, he turned to creating innovative shows in media to prepare for the launch of the first-ever EASL season in October.

“2020 was a weird year,” said Beyer. “So we decided to build an arsenal of original content, telling stories of players in lockdown, doing behind-the-scenes stories while building our brand to get fans excited in the region. We’re organically growing our followers base and now, on an average month, we’re hitting over 40 million in reach and more than six million engagements.” Beyer’s strategy is paying off so that when the gates finally open to inaugurate the EASL season, the anticipation will be sky high. The plan is to gather the top two clubs from the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and Greater China to play in a home-and-away group stage before advancing to the Final Four and the championship game with a $1 million prize. Beyer is making it easy for teams to participate by scheduling only six group games, including three at home, over a five-month period. EASL will foot the travel, board and lodging bills, too. Additionally, a team will receive $20,000 for each game plus $20,000 if it wins. EASL will also subsidize the staging of every home contest. FIBA has given its blessings for EASL to be the exclusive rights holder of a “Champions League” competition in the region for 10 years, renewable for another five.

“Scheduling is probably the most challenging part of everything right now,” said Beyer. “There are some outstanding issues because of the diverse tapestry when you look at Greater China, for instance, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, we’re mindful of all that. We’ve got a long planning cycle and we’re open to make adjustments. It’s part of our model that we don’t take anything away from the domestic league. We’re coordinating with Japan’s B-League, Korea’s KBL, China’s CBA, Chinese Taipei and PBA. We want to extend the brand of every league, including PBA, across the region and elevate the brands of players and deliver revenue streams with value in media and sponsorship rights. We plan to elevate the level of play in every domestic league. There is a large potential to grow. We’re laying out a strong club-to-club competition that allows the top teams in Asia to meet each other in a Champions League format.”

Beyer said if for some reason, the pandemic remains pervasive in East Asia, it will mean delaying EASL’s launch for at least a year. The safety of players, team officials and fans is paramount in EASL’s priorities. “We’re very confident of the proliferation of the vaccine,” he said. “The world is extremely anxious to open up with international commerce and travel. Tourism as an industry needs to open up. I don’t think we can make a judgment call to say things won’t work out this year, maybe until the third quarter but we’re counting on the vaccine. Our home-and-away format requires international travel to be normalized. No way we’ll do a bubble, it’s not feasible. We don’t want professional athletes to sit in a room for two weeks, jeopardizing their condition. We’d have injuries all over the place and we’ll be the biggest enemy of our partner leagues faster than you can imagine.”

The pandemic is wreaking havoc on sporting events around the world but while Beyer said it’s not smooth sailing, “we have a strong ship.” He has formally invited the PBA to be a founding EASL member and the Board of Governors is expected to discuss the offer in its next meeting late this month. “We’re working hard to address any potential concerns EASL may have moving forward prior to the PBA Board meeting,” said Beyer. “The focus is on a clear win-win relationship with the PBA.”