The Washington Commanders have announced a new corporate partnership with tech giant Alibaba Group, which is facing scrutiny over its alleged cooperation with the Chinese government. On Saturday, the Financial Times reported that Alibaba provides tech support for Chinese military “operations” against targets in the United States.
The FT released its report days after the launch of the Commanders’ partnership with Alibaba, which the team announced on its official LinkedIn page last week. “Alibaba’s signage will be displayed at Northwest Stadium and on the team’s digital platforms, highlighting their online marketplace’s unique features,” the announcement reads.
The Commanders’ announcement did not specify when Alibaba logos will begin to appear at their stadium. The team’s next home game is not scheduled to take place until November 30, when they will host the Denver Broncos on Sunday Night Football.
According to the national security memo reviewed by the FT, Alibaba gives the Chinese government access to customer data, including Wi-Fi information and payments records. The memo also says that Alibaba had transferred information to the Chinese military about software vulnerabilities before developers could fix them.
Alibaba is one of China’s largest tech companies. It began as a platform for e-commerce, but has since branched out into cloud computing and artificial intelligence. The company’s chairman and co-founder, Joseph Tsai (蔡崇信), owns the Brooklyn Nets, as well as the New York Liberty, a WNBA team.
The Chinese state-owned newspaper People’s Daily revealed in 2018 that Tsai’s co-founder, Jack Ma (馬雲), was a member of the Chinese Communist Party. Ma disappeared from public view for several months in late 2020 as the Chinese government launched a regulatory crackdown on several of Alibaba Group’s businesses. Ma has kept a relatively low public profile ever since.
In the Commander’s announcement, the team said: “Alibaba’s platform makes it easier than ever for thousands of American companies, large and small, to expand and sell abroad, bringing more opportunities and jobs to the U.S.”
Representatives from the Commanders did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alibaba is not the first Chinese tech giant to draw scrutiny from U.S. national security officials. Earlier this fall, the U.S. government forced the Chinese company ByteDance to transfer control of its social media platform TikTok to a group of American investors, citing concerns that Beijing could manipulate the app’s algorithm and gain access to Americans’ user data.
Alibaba Group has spent nearly $2.5 million on lobbying efforts in the U.S. so far in 2025, according to the government transparency database OpenSecrets.
“Proud to partner with one of the largest/most influential global companies, Alibaba Group!” wrote Eric Liebovitz, the Commanders’ vice president for partnership development, on LinkedIn Last week. The post concluded: “Huge thanks to Paul Nagle and Eric Pelletier for their commitment and friendship. Big things ahead!”
Nagle and Pelletier both work in Alibaba’s International Government Affairs division. Nagle’s LinkedIn page declares that his “team has secured national security approvals in the U.S. and Canada and consistently achieved superior policy outcomes relative to competitors.”
Billionaire investor Josh Harris, who is in his third season as the Commanders’ owner, has worked to rehabilitate the team’s image, which had been tarnished for decades by scandals off the field and poor play on it. In a survey conducted by the NFL Players Association evaluating workplace environment, the team rose from 32nd in the league to 11th during the second year of Harris’s ownership.
The team is currently planning the construction of a new stadium at the old site of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, which housed the team from 1961 to 1996. President Donald Trump reportedly hopes the stadium will be named after him.
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