According to US paper, the Wall Street Journal, the venture hopes to capitalise on the post-Olympics commercialisation of sports in China and intends to develop sports and entertainment events across China for broadcast on CCTV - whose daily audience of 680 million people. In addition, IMG will sell sponsorship rights to those events.
Ted Forstmann, IMG's chairman and chief executive, said: "The fundamental purpose of the joint venture is to marry what CCTV does in China and what IMG does all over the world. "If we are successful [in China], there are going to be a whole lot of events that exist that do not exist today," he added.
The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
