On March 30, the Wuhan-based sports and entertainment firm DDMC announced in their official statement that DDMC’s wholly-owned subsidiary company, Nice International Sports, had bagged the full media rights to broadcast LaLiga’s game for 2017-2022.
Suning-backed PPTV also announced on the same day in a press release that they had signed an agreement with DDMC regarding how to operate the rights to broadcast LaLiga.
Under this agreement, DDMC have the rights to negotiate with PPTV and the latter’s stakeholders on whether to let PPTV maintain exclusive LaLiga broadcasting rights in the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 seasons or to distribute the rights. After the 2019/2020 season, DDMC will give PPTV the right of priority in distribution deals.
In 2015, PPTV bought the all-media rights of La Liga for mainland China, Taiwan and Macau for the 2015-2020 period for €250m. PPTV have acquired the rights to present LaLiga through various channels including TV networks, online streaming, new media platforms or public shows. The deal also enables the emerging online broadcaster to sign sub-license deals with others.
Last June, DDMC and Suning said they had set up a joint venture company to develop the sports rights market.
It has been reported that this joint venture company will be initially registered with CNY100m ($14.7m) of which CNY45m ($6.6m) will come from DDMC, CNY40m ($5.9m) from Suning Sports and the remaining CNY15m ($2.2m) funded by this JV's management team and other shareholders.
Source: iFeng
Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick