On February 28, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced in a statement that it had terminated its events broadcasting partnership with LeSports, and sold the broadcasting rights to China Sports Media for all the official competitions under its jurisdiction, from 2017-2020. LeSports expressed regret over the matter, and said that they would make it up to its members.
In Oct. 2015, LeSports bought the events media rights of the AFC at a high price of $0.11 billion; however, it has twice missed a payment deadline of $0.1 billion, first at the end of January and now again this week.
China Sports Media previously bought the full media rights to Chinese Super League events for RMB 8 billion.
According to Chinese media CBN, the current problem of LeEco is a funding shortage. Although the products and service of LeSports are generally acknowledged to be top-class, and its user experience is also superior to competitors, it requires a continuous cash flow to support its future development. Thus the lack of paying customers has become its fatal weakness. “The model of paid viewing in China is not fully developed yet, and the advertisement income is too small to support the rising costs of copyrights,” An executive of LeSports informed a reporter from CBN.
Source: Sina
Proofread by Sean O Diobhilin