China Mobile Extends into OTT With China Basketball League

Migu, the video entertainment arm of telco giant China Mobile, has signed a wide-ranging agreement with the China Basketball Association (CBA), the top-tier basketball league in China.

The five-year deal, will run until the 2024/25 season and includes Official Partner sponsorship status, exclusive IPTV rights and non-exclusive streaming rights. Migu has also agreed to collaborate with the CBA on the development of 5G network transmission technology.

The total agreement is worth US$283m+, according to China’s Lanxiong Sports, an average of almost US$57m per year.

Migu began streaming live and on-demand coverage of the league in 2018-19 after signing a two-season rights agreement. It arrived on the live sport streaming scene when it acquired sub-licensed streaming rights to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in a deal with national broadcaster CCTV.

Since its first tie-up with the CBA, which was announced in October 2018, Migu committed to working with the league on streaming matches in ultra high-definition (‘4K’) resolution. That initial agreement was followed up with a content and sponsorship rights deal with the NBA. Migu secured content rights in China, Hong Kong and Macau and became an Official Partner of the NBA in  China.

The CBA took its commercial rights sales in-house in 2017 after the end of its exclusive agreement with Infront, which did retain its role selling rights to China’s national basketball teams.

The CBA, which has been suspended since January due to the COVID-19 outbreak, is poised to tap into further non-exclusive agreements from 2020-21 onwards. Incumbents Tencent Sports and Youku Sports are the most likely candidates for negotiations.