English football’s Premier League may have to waive rights fees in China if it is to establish a significant presence in the country, according to Pierre Justo, Asia director of sport and media at the TNS/CSM Media Research company.
Justo told Bloomberg the league may have to change its previous approach of trying to generate the highest rights fee possible if it is to guarantee broader exposure in the country. The obvious way to get broader exposure would be through a deal with state broadcaster CCTV, the only broadcaster that can show sport on a nationwide basis.
However, Justo said that CCTV’s approach to foreign rights-holders is generally: “If you want to reach the Chinese consumer, pay us … The logic is reversed.”
US basketball league the NBA has taken this approach, receiving low rights fees in return for wide exposure on CCTV.
Justo said that it was very difficult for any sport to make a big impact in China without a deal with the national broadcaster. He also said that having a Chinese footballer in the Premier League would provide a major boost to local interest in the competition.
The Super Sports Media agency is the current Premier League rights-holder in China in a three-year deal from 2010-11 to 2012-13. It has sublicensed the rights to regional free-to-air broadcasters in deals covering about one third of the country’s population. Previous rights-holder, pay-television broadcaster Win TV, attracted only 30,000 subscribers to its coverage of the league.
“We’ve seen a strong increase in ratings versus last season because people were still recovering from the Win TV time,” Super Sports senior vice-president Clark Xu said. “Lots of people didn’t realise they could watch it for free but now they all know.”
The Premier League said in a statement: “China remains a very unique broadcast market that requires a flexible and tailored approach in order to satisfy the various objectives of our clubs and stakeholders. As with a number of our key international markets, this is a long-term strategy and one that requires continual assessment.”