Super Sports Media, iQiyi team up to create new streaming platform
Major Chinese video streaming platform iQiyi announced earlier this month that it is to team up with Beijing-based sports streaming service Super Sports Media Inc to establish a sports broadcast portal, named iQiyi Sports.
Super Sports and iQiyi said they will pool their sports copyright resources for the joint venture, which will purchase the rights to broadcast more sporting events from around the world. It hopes to attract investment to the platform to assist with its operation and promotion, and to date, it has acquired 500 million yuan ($73 million) in financing, according to a joint news release.
From August, iQiyi Sports has started broadcasting top sports events including soccer, tennis and golf, and bought the rights to show the English Premier League and the UEFA Nations League.
Super Sports has years of experience in purchasing the rights to broadcast major sporting events and providing paid content, while iQiyi possesses a large number of potential users of sports videos, said Yu Lingxiao, CEO of Super Sports.
The two sides will give full play to mutual advantages to explore the sports media market and bring high-quality sports content and services to users, Yu said.
Due to the cooperation, subscribers of iQiyi’s tennis package and original members of Super Sports will be integrated into iQiyi Sports’ system.
The content offered on iQiyi Sports will range from live coverage of sporting events and exclusive coverage of some tennis and golf tournaments. Its membership will be given access to watch live Premier League and tennis matches.
“Currently, China’s sports industry has entered a phase of rapid development and is integrating with entertainment globally. It has great potential,” said Wang Xiaohui, chief content officer of iQiyi.
The new sports portal will focus on providing quality content, live coverage, advertising and membership services, he added.
Since 2012, iQiyi has operated a sports channel and strategically cooperated with big ticket sporting events in golf, tennis and boxing. Last year, iQiyi incorporated tennis matches into its subscription package.
In recent years, Chinese media platforms have increased investment in purchasing the rights to broadcast sports events.
Data from Selection Market Research Group showed that during the 2018 World Cup, Migu Video, a video portal affiliated with China Mobile, attracted an audience of 4.3 billion people with an average over 100 million active users a day.
At the same time, the World Cup opening match has driven a 160 percent surge in new users to Youku, with daily active users increasing by about 20 percent. The number of live broadcasts viewers has exceeded 12 million.
There are not many top sports events in the world, Xu Shan, an investment analyst told Culture Industries weekly magazine.
“From the perspective of audience base, only top sports events such as the World Cup and the NBA can be considered as highlyvalued copyright, and only those with such copyright can have a higher chance of success in the short run,” Xu said.
But competition among platforms for such limited resources has resulted in increased copyright costs, he added.
Chinese media giant Suning Sports has increased its investment in buying the rights to broadcast sporting events and now owns 90 percent of all of China’s sports broadcast rights, including those for Laliga — the Spanish soccer league — and the Asian Champions League.
Last year, Suning Sports spent $721 million on the exclusive media rights over the 2019-22 Premier League competition seasons in the Chinese mainland and Macao, according to IP news portal, China Intellectual Property Rights Net.
Advertisement and subscription are part of a platform’s revenue, said Xu Shan. “It is feasible to gather all resources on platforms and explore multiple methods to profit from copyright, and to find entertainment and products accepted by targeted audiences to tap into copyright resources.”
Zhao Guochen, general manager of operations at Tencent Sports told the Lanxiong Sports news website that for a platform involved in broadcasting sporting events, 20 percent of its success depends on IP and 80 percent on scale and operation.
“For video portals, the more serious challenge in the next face will be operation,” Zhao said.