Before Tencent got the exclusive copyright of this NBA, Sina was the absolute "boss" in this field. In 20 10, Sina signed a three-year agreement with the NBA at a price of about $7 million per year, and could play an NBA game every day. In 20 13, Sina, which was dragged down by Weibo business and faced with operational pressure, put all its eggs in one basket and won the NBA "21"renewal contract for $20 million a year (two-year contract, but Sina has the priority to renew the contract in the third year). In addition to the broadcast of the game, the official NBA community also settled in Sina.
At that time, although Sina got the right to broadcast online, the NBA would authorize Tencent to broadcast two NBA events every week under the condition that Sina gave priority to broadcast. At the same time, LeTV Sports also obtained the right to broadcast some competitions. The NBA hopes that this event will form competition among broadcasters. But now, the industry structure will change from "Three Kingdoms Kill" to Tencent's "One-man Show". Sina wants to return to the era of text live broadcast+news, while LeTV chooses to focus on some sports events that are not concerned at present and make a long tail.
It is reported that the price that Tencent offered to the NBA was 500 million US dollars (about 3 1 billion RMB) for five years, which was the biggest contract in China sports industry before the five-year 8 billion RMB broadcast contract broke out not long ago.
Tencent is one of the three giants of BAT Internet, with a market value of $200 billion. Tencent's products and services are among the best among Internet companies in China. It is expected that the NBA broadcast service provided by Tencent will greatly improve the picture quality, fluency and explanation, which is good for fans. Why is there controversy on the Internet?
The crux of the problem is that Tencent has changed the previous model of free broadcast+pre-broadcast advertisement+title, and directly launched paid services. The charging standard is 30 yuan/month, 88 yuan for three months and 65438+298 yuan for two months. At the same time, Tencent Sports will still retain some free broadcasts, which will exceed the number of free broadcasts by Sina last year.
This is a very bold attempt. There is no successful example of video content charging in China before. For a long time, video content can be watched for free (of course, there will be some advertisements). Until the last year or two, due to the increasing efforts of video websites to buy high-quality content, the overall cost rising and the poor video advertising experience, mainstream video websites have been trying to pay for video playback, and the result is still unknown. This is a passive mode upgrade, and the background is that intellectual property rights are gradually valued and the price of content is getting higher and higher. It is necessary for video service providers to change the free mode to increase revenue to cover copyright purchase and bandwidth costs. Even if the mode of content charging is adopted, the life of video websites is not easy. A few days ago, it was reported that Alibaba wholly acquired Youku Tudou. If the competition was not too fierce and the money burned badly, the management of Youku Tudou would not have made such a decision. In this context, it is understandable for Tencent to try the NBA live broadcast charging model.
Looking abroad, in fact, NBA events are paid to broadcast in North America and Europe. Watching NBA games online by purchasing NBA LeaguePass members costs about $30 a month. In contrast, 30 yuan RMB launched by Tencent is not expensive every month.
The main points of opponents are as follows:
1. It used to be free, but now it's charged. Tencent is too greedy.
2. The charges are unreasonable, because Tencent monopolizes Yun Yun.
3, as long as Tencent is poor, I don't listen, I don't listen. . .
The author wants to say that the essence of business is to make a profit. If it is not profitable, it is charity, not business. Service can make money and this service can last for a long time. The reason why Apple sells electronic products is more expensive than other companies is that it needs to invest more money in innovation. In turn, innovative products can get higher profits and promote continuous innovation. Therefore, only by making enterprises profitable, technology and services will progress, society will advance and our living standards will be higher.
In addition, the previous NBA network broadcast mode is not really free, but "wool is on pigs", that is, it is settled from advertisers, and will eventually be offset by users who buy advertisers' products. Now only a simple and direct way is used to charge, which also saves the time cost wasted by users watching advertisements and improves the sensory experience. Even if there is a truly completely free service, you can't take it for granted. Just as a stranger helps you, it just means that others are good, but it doesn't mean that any stranger should help you. Free is not normal, but paying is normal.
Moreover, the argument about monopoly is untenable, because it is in the field of intellectual property rights, not a necessity for the public. For intellectual property rights, ownership is mostly exclusive. A writer writes a book, and the copyright of the book belongs only to the writer, and then he gives the book to an agent for exclusive distribution. It can't be said that the agent monopolized it.
Compared with the copyrights of other domestic competitions, the Super League has just signed a "sky-high price contract" of 8 billion yuan in five years, which is a record in China, but it is not an order of magnitude with the broadcast contracts of the five major European leagues. China men's basketball team just won the Asian Championship, which aroused the fans' enthusiasm for basketball. However, CBA still stays in the stage of club pay TV broadcast, which is incredible!
Articles, movies, music and videos all belong to the Internet content industry and all have intellectual property rights. At present, these fields have developed to the marginal level, and the previous free model has been unable to add more industrial value. The author believes that the future of the whole content industry is to pay, readers will reward the author actively, and users will buy members to watch movies and listen to music. This is a good phenomenon.
This time, Tencent bought out the NBA network broadcasting rights and launched a paid broadcasting service in the domestic sports industry. Such an attempt may not be successful, but if this model can be achieved, it means that domestic users' awareness of intellectual property rights of content has been greatly improved. When one day, domestic sports events can also get intellectual property contracts that match the market value, and paying for other people's intellectual property rights becomes a kind of knowledge, China's sports industry, content industry and citizens' market awareness will really reach a mature stage. There is still a long way to go before this.