news

the chinese national football team lost to japan 7-0, and once again poured cold water on the fans with their performance. and along with the first round of the asian qualifiers for the world cup, the fact that the chinese national football team needs to pay to watch the game has also caused considerable controversy.

from watching football for free, to having to pay to watch european professional leagues, and now watching the chinese national football team's games is no longer free, should we pay to watch football?

cctv gave up broadcasting due to high price

just four hours before the match between the chinese national football team and the japanese team, the chinese football association finally announced the broadcasting platform for the world cup qualifiers. unlike in the past, cctv was not included in the broadcasting, and the only domestic broadcasting platform was iqiyi sports. according to the broadcasting rules, the chinese national football team's match was not free, and non-member users had to pay at least 9 yuan to watch it.

as soon as the news came out, it immediately sparked controversy. subsequently, cctv issued a statement stating the reason for not broadcasting. cctv sports said that the top 18 match is indeed a very important event, and the copyright of the event is held by the asian football group (afg), the agent of the afc. during the negotiation process, although they repeatedly fought for it, the other party's offer was still extremely high. as a national radio and television station, under the principle of national interests first, they firmly resist the behavior of domestic and foreign capital disrupting the sports copyright market.

as soon as cctv's statement came out, the pressure came to iqiyi. but the money for the broadcasting rights has been paid, and iqiyi will naturally not cancel the fee. according to their rules, fans need to spend 9 yuan to open an iqiyi sports membership, or spend 318 yuan to buy an "i love football annual card". the annual card benefits also support watching premier league, la liga, exclusive champions league and other games. in addition, viewers can also pay to watch the live broadcast on the iqiyi sports douyin account "new love sports". this game is priced at 99 diamonds, and users who recharge for the first time need to spend at least 15 yuan first.

this controversial paid live broadcast also had a small episode. many fans who bought memberships still could not watch the live broadcast after successfully unlocking the game. in response, iqiyi apologized after the game, saying that the enthusiasm of the fans caused excessive instantaneous traffic. its technical service resource allocation exceeded the limit, causing a bad viewing experience for some users.

should we pay to watch the chinese national football team in the future?

the copyright dispute has a long history. in 2015, ti ao power won the broadcasting rights of the "chinese team" event through bidding for a period of 4 years. this also means that if cctv wants to broadcast the national football team's games, it must pay. in the same year, ti ao power also won the five-year all-media copyright of the chinese super league at a sky-high price of 8 billion yuan, which caused huge controversy. of course, as chinese football fell into a trough, this sky-high copyright fee was not fully paid. but it is worth mentioning that even though the copyright fee was sold at a sky-high price at the time, fans were always free to watch the national football team's games.

since then, the high-priced copyright that "loses money to gain publicity" has become unsustainable, and the market has entered a cooling-off period. but at this time, watching the national football match requires payment, which naturally arouses a lot of doubts. there is no public information disclosed so far, how many people have purchased and watched this live broadcast. however, the replay page of xinai sports shows that more than 13.32 million people have watched this game.

it can be said that the paid viewing of this game has somewhat changed the fans' concept of watching games. although iqiyi sports' exclusive broadcast is currently limited to the first round of the top 18 matches, cctv and other media may still purchase the copyright of future rounds of matches. but will "paid exclusive broadcast" become the norm in the future? it remains to be seen.

source: beijing sports

reporter: li li