young people will pay for content on mobile devices
naky
www.diecastingpartsupplier.com
2015-11-04 14:51:26
Chinese media mogul Li Ruigang is paying a record-breaking $1.3bn for the five-year broadcast rights to China’s football league, in a big bet that young people will pay for content on mobile devices and the beautiful game will become big business on the mainland.
The Rmb8bn ($1.3bn) deal he agreed after seeing off state broadcaster CCTV and other competitors is a huge leap from the Rmb50m per year that is currently being paid to show a league whose top clubs are attracting investment from tycoons including Alibaba’s Jack Ma.
But it is still way behind the $2.6bn per year that Sky and British Telecom are paying for the rights for England’s Premier League, the world’s most watched domestic league.
“At the moment we are reviewing many opportunities, some of them quite high-profile,” he said. “We just try to figure out a China angle which means we can bring those leagues or expertise of operating those leagues back to China.”
While he declined to reveal any particular targets, he referred to recent reports that CMC is a leading investor in a possible $8.5bn consortium bid to buy control of the Formula One motorsport from private equity group CVC.
In 2014 Mr Ma’s Alibaba bought half of China’s best club, Guangzhou Evergrande, which is managed by former Brazilian national coach Luiz Felipe Scolari and has recruited a series of Brazilian star players.
As domestic football improves CMC believes it can convince Chinese consumers to pay for content on their smartphones that they are used to getting for free through TV or illegal streaming websites.
Speaking at a media conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday, Mr Li said that while Chinese viewers do not have a history of paying for premium content, mobile broadcasting was “the best solution for the paid model” because young people were much more focused on getting a “good user experience”.