Competition and sacrifice, why Tencent Sports compete for the price of NBA Copyright ~ Katja News

Competition and sacrifice, why Tencent Sports compete for the price of NBA Copyright

The rights of the NBA and other events, such as Tencent and Ali, are more likely to be the opportunity cost and the cost of the flow, or, therefore, break the business model that Tencent Sports has not taken the "high price copyright".

It is hard to make a profit on the copyright of Chinese competitions. This time, Tencent Sports, which has high hopes, has also been questioned.

On July 29, 2019, Tencent Sports officially announced that it will continue to be the "NBA China Digital Media Exclusive Official Partner" and signed a five-year agreement until the summer of 2025.

After the release of Tencent’s official announcement, Ma Huateng forwarded the news and commented: “In the field of turbulent sports digital media, seeing a wave of radical investment outside the end, or becoming an unsustainable burden. Can circumvent a pit There is the very little team that is solid and solid. There are another five years, and the team is strong."

This is a high degree of affirmation given by Ma Huateng to the Tencent sports team, but due to the confidentiality agreement with the NBA, Guan Xuanzhong did not announce the next five-year contract price, and in the previous report of "Lazy Bear Sports", the figure was 15 Billion dollars, this is almost Tencent won the price of the previous five-year season.

The question is, therefore, coming one after another.

Tencent Sports has always had a low-key restraint. For the competition for the copyright of the event, it is also based on the premise of profitability. Earlier, Zhao Guochen, general manager of Tencent Sports Operations, told China Entrepreneur that for every event IP, regardless of the public or the minority, Tencent Sports will focus on two factors: first, strategic value, and second, business value. An event can satisfy both of these values, or one of them is very valuable, and Tencent will introduce it.

Among the copyrights of many events, the most strategic significance for Tencent is the NBA.

In January 2015, Tencent won the NBA's 2015-2020 season's new media rights in China for US$500 million prices. It also pressured Sina Sports to monopolize China's basketball copyright market. Judging from the information currently available, in 2018, Tencent Sports has achieved break-even in the operation of the NBA and is more likely to achieve profitability in the later period.

However, Tencent’s signing with the NBA at this cost will break the relatively healthy situation of the basketball copyright market. Is the price of $1.5 billion too high? After the "losing money to earning money", where is the future of Tencent Sports?

At the same time, as the most powerful competitor of Tencent Sports, Ali is also involved in the competition for NBA copyrights. Suning and Youku have also been active in the sports market copyright market in recent years. The copyright of sports events in China has finally become a business that only BAT (Baidu, Ali, and Tencent) can make a splash.

Competition is intensifying.

Tencent's defensive battle

From the introduction of Lazy Bear Sports CEO Han Mu, it can be seen that Tencent Sports and the NBA's renewal negotiations have started in 2018 but did not reach an agreement before the end of the exclusive negotiation period at the end of March 2019, and then Alibaba joined the battle. It also brought out the same sincerity as Tencent Sports.

At the same time, many media have reported that the most exaggerated rumors appeared in July 2018. At that time, there was a voice saying that Youku Sports has begun to dig into the NBA host and commentator of Tencent Sports. Since March 2017, the NBA has signed short video cooperation agreements with Sina Weibo, Mi Wei Sports and even byte beat. The validity period is 2019~2020, which is consistent with Tencent's season.

This also seems to confirm the determination of the NBA to seek greater interests in China, and Alibaba has never concealed its desire for this top event.

As the second person of Alibaba, Cai Chongxin's identity is not only the co-founder but also the owner of the NBA Brooklyn Nets and the WNBA New York Freedom and Barclays Center. In other words, Cai Chongxin can attend any meeting of the NBA as a shareholder of the team, which has an inherent advantage for Ali to compete for NBA copyright.

In Tencent, the NBA renewed talks this time is the "No. 2 character" Liu Chipping around Ma Huateng. It is worth mentioning that Liu Chipping is the head of Tencent's investment department. It can be seen that Tencent attaches importance to this negotiation.

This kind of competition situation is equivalent to handing over the right to choose the NBA CEO Adam Xiaohua. Although many sources have shown that Alibaba offers higher prices than Tencent, in the end, Adam Xiaohua chose Tencent.

According to public data, in the 2018~2019 season, the NBA live broadcast and video programs reached 490 million times through the Tencent platform, which is nearly three times that of the 2014~2015 season. More than 21 million fans watched the 2018~2019 season. The live broadcast of the sixth game of the NBA Finals created the largest number of viewers in a single NBA event on China's digital media platform. The NBA can also clearly understand how to choose a partner in China, or whether to have the operational capabilities of the event content.

The NBA has always been able to select the best operators in China. From TOM to Sina Technology, from Sina Technology to today's Tencent Sports, the core management of the NBA is a lawyer, and the defense against risk is higher. Tencent at the time was indeed the best partner.

As Adam Xiaohua said, "Tencent has an irreplaceable value for the NBA."

From the perspective of the NBA, there are challenges in the operation of China at present, especially in the current situation where Chinese elements are getting less and less. How to attract primary school students after 00 and 05 is a problem.

"In the past, we had Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian, but now there are only new players like Zhou Qi. The next Yao Ming is still unknown. But Tencent just provides the NBA with the opportunity to reach out to young people. Tencent's social products can be said to have no dead ends. In particular, QQ, there is a strong trend of younger age, NBA CEO Adam Xiaohua said that Tencent has the characteristics of large flow and full platform.

Of course, from the perspective of Tencent Sports, the NBA is the lifeblood. From the earlier statement by Zhao Guochen on "Chinese Entrepreneur", Tencent’s efforts in the NBA have been seen.

"In the past few years, Tencent Sports has been investing in the NBA, such as enough CDN bandwidth, new studios comparable to ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network). Also, Zhao Guochen revealed that as of the end of 2017, Tencent Sports had about 350 employees, including more than 150 in the NBA project; and Tencent broadcasted more than a thousand NBAs last season, most of which were matched. Have a comment.

Zhang Qing also believes that Tencent Sports has always focused on the content of the event. "Tencent has always hoped to use digital technology and multimedia interactive technology to re-create content. Sports is a slow business. Only by being patient with the content, can we take care of other things."

But no matter how good Tencent Sports is, as long as NBA events are popular in China, the price of the next cycle will be hard to avoid. Tencent focuses on the copyright of basketball games. The NBA is the key to being indispensable. Can it be said that Tencent Sports? Has it been wrapped up in the NBA?

Earlier, Xinying Sports had suffered a big loss because of over-reliance on the Premier League. After the Premier League was robbed by LeTV, Xinying Sports even ran aground the plan for listing. Fu Yingling, CEO of Xinying Sports, also had a "Chinese Entrepreneur". I have said that I hope that Tencent will not eat the losses that Xinying has eaten.

But at least for now, if this renewal is $1.5 billion, whether Tencent’s business can be returned, in the view of Roland Berger’s senior partner Ren Guoqiang, it is necessary to draw a question mark. However, Ren Guoqiang also admitted that for the Internet giant, the copyright of heavyweight sports events has more strategic significance.

The copyrights of the NBA and other events have made people rush and more are the opportunity cost and the cost of the flow, or just because of this, it has broken Tencent Sports' business model that has never taken “high price copyright”.

"Ali" when proceeding

On the other hand, Ali, the other end of the battle, is holding the Premier League and collecting the copyrights of football matches. Why do you want to steal basketball games?

In fact, for the user, "watching football on PPTV and watching basketball on Tencent Sports, this concept has already been produced." Zhang Qing said, then in this context, Youku will take the NBA again, which means that all can be The monopoly of the head races will have a huge bargaining space for the copyright owners of the event.

"Of course, the NBA is very savvy." A person who did not want to be named in the industry also told the "Chinese Entrepreneur" that "I never think that Ali can win the NBA in this round of negotiations."

Also, Ali's competition for the NBA is based on another purpose. Since the beginning of 2019, there have been rumors that Ali wants to establish a joint venture with Suning. However, after a few months, there has been no substantial progress in this matter.

"I'm planning to hold the NBA's copyright to talk to Suning, hoping to further open up the copyright resources of both parties, but this time I haven't talked with the NBA. For Suning Sports, Youku is also in a weak position." The above-mentioned person who did not want to be named said. Compared with Youku, Suning’s PPTV has too many core copyrights, and the higher copyright price has made Suning under pressure. At present, the operation of the Premier League is at an important stage, but for running sports events, Youku is an “outsider”. This has also become the reason for the stagnation of this negotiation.

But as a result, the copyright market for sports events in China is becoming more stable. As long as there are no new players to intervene, Suning will continue to deepen the football, Tencent will continue to study basketball, after a number of rounds of "staking the horse", players will also enter the stage of competing operational capabilities, but the copyright costs So expensive, when will the platform be able to level the costs and achieve revenue?

Long-term business: profit becomes a permanent problem

Han Mu directly gave a negative attitude to this question. "No matter which giant, it is impossible to achieve profit through the copyright of the event." The industry generally believe that China's sports atmosphere and commercial level, and developed in Europe and America. There is still a very large gap between countries.

From the current situation, the way of copyright realization is mainly divided into three types: user payment, advertising revenue, and IP development. Among them, IP development refers more to new ways of playing games such as e-commerce, live broadcasting, and variety matching. However, from the perspective of effectiveness, the benefits brought by China's IP development are still “cutting materials”. At present, there is no copyright for any event, and users can pay for advertising and advertising to level revenue. Tencent’s high-price renewal of the NBA also broke the balance that had been sought before.

However, in the view of Wang Dong, executive vice president of Suning Sports, copyright development and event operations can still bring returns, but the current copyright price is too high, at least 50% lower to ensure a virtuous cycle. For Suning, whether it will repeat the mistakes of LeTV Sports has become a common concern. After all, Storm Sports recently "overturned" because of its risk in the football copyright market.

However, the development of Suning Sports is at least relatively stable. At the media briefing on August 2, Wang Dong also announced that PPTV officially entered the Premier League's new round of the season, and in the next two to three years, Suning Sports will also open the listing plan, and in the second half of 2019 Conducting round B financing. According to data released by Sun Weimin, former vice president of Suning Yunshang, PP Sports currently has more than 6 million paid members.

"I believe that no matter what the outcome, we will not give up the exploration in the sports copyright market." In the view of Han Mu, the copyright of the event is a business that is enough to make people go through the fire. Of course, like the video website, there is no sport. Event companies can achieve profitability and even huge losses.

"But the copyright of the event is still a must-do. If Rilakkuma Sports has such capital and strength, we will also participate." Han Mu told "Chinese Entrepreneur", "This is not out of sentiment, because all Everyone knows that China will have its own ESPN, maybe ten or twenty years."

Perhaps as Han Mu said, for all sports industry players, it is a lifelong goal to find a suitable operation mode for the development of the Chinese market. “It is like a rock climber must climb Mount Everest, although, in the process, It is very likely that the team will be frozen to death on the road."

About Admin MC3

This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.