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【key points】from the perspective of sports broadcasting history, the world cup asian qualifiers round of 18 is likely to become a milestone event. it not only marks the comprehensive upgrade of the paid viewing model, but also heralds a new trend - the broadcasting model of national teams is also transitioning to the internet + paid model.

author: zhang bin

before the start of the world cup asian qualifiers, it was hard for fans to imagine having to pay to watch the chinese national team's games. after two rounds, although the chinese team lost both games, fans seem to have accepted the reality of paying for the national team's games.

iqiyi sports became the "first person to try it out", and was criticized by fans for this. however, under the dual pressures of high copyright costs and increasing difficulty in advertising monetization, this is both a helpless choice and an inevitable path.

from the perspective of sports broadcasting history, the world cup asian qualifiers round of 18 is likely to become a milestone event. it not only marks the comprehensive upgrade of the paid viewing model, but also heralds a new trend - the broadcasting model of national teams is also transitioning to the internet + paid model.

exclusive broadcasting creates the prerequisite for payment

iqiyi sports announced early on that it would exclusively broadcast the first round of the china-japan match in the round of 18, but fans initially did not take it seriously and did not believe that cctv would miss the broadcast of such a major event.

it seems to be an unwritten rule in the industry that cctv has acquired the copyright of the event at a relatively low price. mainstream copyrights are reluctant to lose the cctv platform easily, but in the past few years, more and more mainstream copyrights have been missing from cctv, such as the la liga in the past nine seasons, the serie a and the champions league this season, and even the status of the nba on cctv has gradually declined.

the reason is that the new generation of sports users have gradually become accustomed to watching live events on the internet, and the broadcast time of cable tv networks is relatively limited, unlike internet platforms that can broadcast multiple games at the same time. some copyright holders are also paying less attention to cctv.

in terms of business, cctv could have rejected the offer from the asian football group (afg), the afc's agent, and chosen not to broadcast the first two rounds of the chinese national football team's top 18 matches. the decline in the status of cable broadcasting platforms also made it unnecessary for afg to compromise. the negotiation rift between the two parties may be difficult to heal in a short period of time.

it is also surprising that migu did not win the copyright of the top 18. since entering the sports copyright track in 2018, migu has always been aiming high and has never missed out on the copyright of major events.

cctv, migu and iqiyi sports are the only three remaining players in the football copyright market. new entrants such as leisu sports and qiukedao are unable to compete with them. when cctv and migu were absent from the feast, it was a natural choice for iqiyi sports, which has the exclusive broadcasting rights, to choose the paid model.

is paying for the national football team becoming a trend?

the paid model has become popular and has gradually been accepted by fans. in the years when the sports industry was at its peak, letv and pp sports began to gradually try the membership payment model to make money. this is the inevitable result of being overwhelmed by high copyright fees. fans were not very receptive at first, after all, the inertia of watching games for free is very strong. however, after about ten years of market cultivation, paying for football matches has become commonplace.

national team matches have always seemed to be a special case. previously, copyrights were often distributed, with cctv and mainstream internet media platforms broadcasting them. based on this, it is difficult for any internet platform to choose a paid model.

but the era of paying for the chinese national football team has finally arrived. as mentioned earlier, iqiyi sports’ exclusive all-media broadcasting rights have become a prerequisite.

in addition to copyright costs, there is another major incentive that forced iqiyi to take the brave step of paying - the difficulty of monetizing advertising sponsorship. the situation of the chinese national football team is worrying. the image of chinese football is not positive enough in the midst of the anti-gambling and anti-gang storm. coupled with the impact of the overall economic environment, few advertisers are willing to pay for the national football team's games.

at the same time, chinese fans are still willing to pay for their love. the existence of hotlinking and illegal broadcasting will indeed divert some fans, but the number of this group is not high. chinese fans are still willing to spend money on national football matches. they also know that the platform needs to spend a high price to purchase copyrights, and there are corresponding production and broadcasting costs. from another perspective, the "extremely high price" in cctv's statement also provided an "indirect assist" for iqiyi sports' payment.

in fact, watching the game broadcast through cable tv is not free. the current high-definition packages such as hd, uhd, and 4k cost more than a thousand yuan per year. there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world.

the more advantages of the internet platform will make fans more willing to pay, such as watching multiple games at the same time, instant replay, diversified commentary, etc. of course, the internet platform may not be friendly enough for middle-aged and elderly fans, but with the advancement of technology, the media methods are gradually updated and iterated, and it is only a matter of time before the internet covers all age groups. this also lays a solid foundation for fans of all ages to be willing to pay to watch the national football games.

chinese football is definitely not world-class, but the enthusiasm of chinese fans is no less than that of the world's top teams. the popularity of the chinese national football team has not declined due to poor performance and poor image. iqiyi sports chose to believe that the chinese national football team still has a very high popularity and paid for the national football team's games. otherwise, fans in china would have no legal channels to watch the game broadcasts. this also reflects the social responsibility that a company needs to bear.

they took a bold attempt despite the world's disapproval, and the result was basically consistent with their predictions, and may even have exceeded expectations. during the china-japan match, the membership payment system of iqiyi sports app had problems, which indirectly proved the fans' enthusiasm for paying.

what did we miss due to migu’s absence?

after pp sports withdrew from the historical stage, the football copyright was basically shared equally by migu and iqiyi sports. migu once had all the five major european leagues, the chinese super league, and the asian champions league, and its edge was even higher than that of iqiyi sports.

since the 2018 world cup, migu's strategy has been to go all out, and it is still the internet platform with the most copyrights. in addition to football copyrights, migu also has copyrights for major events such as nba, cba, and ufc. as an internet media platform with a strong state-owned enterprise background, migu has never missed the broadcast of top competitions, such as the olympics, world cup, european cup, asian games, and asian cup.

many industry insiders were surprised that migu did not obtain the broadcasting rights for the top 18 matches. it can be speculated that the high copyright costs and the difficulty of advertising monetization in the current situation of the chinese national football team are probably the main reasons why migu hesitated. migu may not have predicted that the absence of cctv would lead to the carnival of the paid model.

in the absence of cctv, if migu adopts a paid model like iqiyi sports, it will have more inherent advantages: first, migu has accumulated a huge number of sports members, the number may even be higher than that of iqiyi sports, and this group has become accustomed to watching games on migu; second, migu's other strategy is to have a commentary team. many top commentators such as zhan jun and dong lu bring their own traffic, and many fans have become dependent on migu's commentary.

analyzing from the perspective of hindsight, migu missed the historic opportunity to fully embrace paid broadcasting of national team events, and may not have keenly captured the formation of a new landscape for sports event broadcasting - that is, the broadcasting of national team events began to move towards the internet + paid model.

of course, migu and cctv may still get the copyright of the top 18 matches. if several media companies have the copyright of the national football team, whether they will continue the paid strategy is unknown. it is also unknown on which platform the 2025 u20 asian cup will be broadcast and whether the paid model will continue. it is also worth paying attention to whether cctv and migu will get this copyright.

in any case, once the door to paid national team matches has been opened, there is no reason to close it again. after all, the high copyright costs and the difficulty of monetizing advertising for national football matches are unlikely to be completely reversed in the short term.

migu's adjustment in copyright purchase and operation strategy has made them miss the great opportunity to continue to consolidate the first sports content platform in china. now, iqiyi sports and new players in the copyright field such as leisu sports and qiukedao have begun to try to broadcast events on douyin. this may not be a potential threat to migu.

faced with a brand new era of internet broadcasting, with short video platforms such as tiktok playing an increasingly important role and the rise of new media platforms such as zhiboba, leisu sports, and qiukedao, veteran football broadcasting platforms such as migu and iqiyi sports have come to a critical crossroads. iqiyi sports has made its cards clear, and it remains to be seen how migu will make its move.