Sohu.com (SOHU) was a Bejing Olympics sponsor, so now rivals are trying to emulate the success that a sponsorship brings — NetEase (NTES) announced in Guangzhou that the company has signed with the city be the sponsor of the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games for Internet content and website service sectors.

At the same time, the official website for the 16th Asian Games, gz2010.cn, has also opened after a revision.

At the signing ceremony, Ding Lei, CEO and chairman of the board of directors of NetEase, said that the company has kept close communications with the Asian Games Organizing Committee when Guangzhou was still in its early bidding for the 2010 Asian Games. As a sponsor for the Games, NetEase will mainly invest website construction resources, including technologies, bandwidth and servers, as well as a cash investment.

In the next two years, NetEase will put in a lot of manpower and resources to promote the Asian Games brand, to report the preparation of the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, to report information of the events and to help spread the charm, if any, of Guangzhou.