On Wednesday afternoon, Beijing time, soccer superstar Lionel Messi appeared on a live streaming show on Taobao Live, Alibaba's live streaming platform.
Messi showed up with Chinese influencer Li Xuanzhuo, who made a name for himself by once selling more than 600,000 bottles of liquor in three months, raking in over 50 million yuan (US$7 million).
Given Messi's worldwide fame and Li's successful sales record, there was widespread speculation prior to the live stream that the Chinese influencer would attempt to leverage Messi's popularity to boost his sales.
However, contrary to these expectations, Li only held a talk with Messi and did not involve in any commercial activities.
The nearly 20-minute live interview attracted a lot of attention, and the number of people online in the live broadcast room once exceeded 2.5 million.
Interestingly, although Messi did not endorse any products during the live streaming, searches for Messi-related items such as jerseys, sneakers, and mate tea skyrocketed on Taobao, topping the platform's most searched list.
Prior to joining Taobao Live, Messi also appeared on China's second-largest live-streaming platform, Kugou Live, on the night on June 12. Although he only appeared for about 50 seconds, the live show attracted 190 million views.
The superstar, who arrived in China last Saturday, will lead Argentina against Australia on Thursday at Beijing's newly renovated 68,000-seat Workers' Stadium.