As more and more Chinese magnates have begun to expand into the sports market, the event intellectual property (IP) has naturally become a focus at the Sports Sub-forum of the 2016 Boao Forum for Asia.

Li Ting, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of CCTV, believes that event IPs are the core of the sports industry and the seed of other sports businesses.

Jiang Heping, chief of the CCTV Sports Channel, was impressed by the fact that dramatic rises in sporting copyright fees have made a great impact on traditional media. “I have seen unprecedented changes in the Chinese sports market, ever since the State Council’s launch of Guideline No.46 to boost the sports industry. I’ve been in my position for nearly 9 years. At the beginning of my 9-year career here, CCTV 5 was almost the only sports platform in the country,” Jiang recalled.

“Now things are quite different. Various platforms including Ms. Chen Juhong’s company Tencent, have emerged in the sector,” Jiang continued, “but this has become a strong driving force for CCTV, because we find ourselves having to embrace changes.”

Chen Juhong, Vice President of Tencent, the NBA’s new media rights holder in China, has a view on the relationship between events intellectual property and sports media.

As Chen put it, “During our first half-year partnership with the NBA, we have learned how a top-flight league operate their businesses, how they deal with their rights and interests, how they manage their star players and how they maximize their value through a well-established business model.”

"This multi-year agreement enables us to bring substantially more NBA games and content to consumers than have ever been available in the past, and we look forward to working with the NBA league, teams and players to further enhance the sport’s profile and popularity." So stated President of Tencent Martin Lau said last year, about their partnership with the NBA .

It needs every player’s efforts in this market to turn a simple event into a popular IP, which features competitiveness, continuity and added business value. In this case, sports media will play an irreplaceable role in content transmission, fans’ engagement, the display of behind-the-screen stories and realization of sport’s business value.  

Proofread by John Devlin.