In addition to my SupChina column, I’ve also been filing a weekly China Digest for SportBusiness over the past year. Here’s a summary of what you can find in this week’s version:
CSL TV rights deal extended for another five years
It’s been a roller coaster ride for the Chinese Super League (CSL) over the past three years – most clearly evidenced by the ups and downs of its main domestic broadcast deal. In the first TV rights auction since the government announced widespread football reforms in March 2015, the relatively little known Tiao Dongli, aka China Sports Media (CSM), stunned the sports industry in September 2015 by paying a massive 8 billion RMB ($1.25 billion) in a five-year deal, far outbidding more established rivals, including CCTV, IMG and Infront.
It marked a staggering 20-fold increase on the previous payout and, despite the money pouring into Chinese soccer following the reform announcement, the industry was universal in declaring this A Bad Deal.
The deal was structured to pay 1 billion RMB in 2016 & 2017 and 2 billion RMB in each of the following three years, but CSM suddenly looked very prescient indeed when, just a few months later, they flipped the first two years to LeSports for 2.7 billion RMB – ostensibly a 35% profit. Even after LeSports’ well-documented struggles saw them fail to pay their bills, rival PPTV picked up the 2017 contract on terms that were thought to be comparable, but, with the market depressed and the yearly fee set to double to 2 billion RMB for the 2018 season, the pressure was building on CSM to make a profit on the rest of the contract.