Capital boosted Ti’ao Power for the eye-catching CSL deal

Chinese little-known company Ti’ao Power pocketed the rights to produce and broadcast Chinese Super League (CSL) for the next five seasons with a shocking record fee (RMB8 billion), announced by the Chinese top flight soccer league last Friday.

Despite the independence from Chinese soccer governing body CFA earlier in August, the CSL, which are still at the early stage of the course from governmental control towards full marketization, had not been expected to make such a great fortune in a fairly short time.

The names of Infront Media or CTV Media emerged earlier this month as various Chinese media began to report that the CSL were set to sell the production and broadcast rights with a starting price over RMB300 million. And more surprisingly, it was a Beijing-based company named as Ti’ao Power that won the bid to produce and broadcast or even distribute the CSL after beating these previously mentioned media giants.

All of a sudden, more than a few were puzzled about the identity and profile of Ti’ao Power.

Well, people may have heard of this company if they know Chinese soccer industry relatively well or were informed with the stories of Team China, China’s national soccer teams, of which the rights were sold to Ti’ao Power with a reported RMB70-80 million in May.

However, it is the capital behind the curtain rather the name or promotional introduction of the company that catches most attention as RMB8 billion is currently such an astronomic figure for Chinese soccer.

According to a report by Chinese Xinhua News Agency, Ti’ao Power is backed by China Media Capital (CMC), led by renowned Ruigang Lee, who was the former head at SMG. And CMC was determined to win the rights of the CSL, which is regarded as rare soccer resources remaining in China, to propose their overall plan in sports industry.

Additionally, with the rights of both Team China and CSL, CMC have arguably dominated the top resources in Chinese soccer, marking it another business giants alongside the likes of Wanda, Alibaba or Tencent to exploit the emerging sports industry in China.

As a capital player, CMC might earn the money back through markets by capital operation, said Jiang Heping, the head of CCTV’s sports channels. Jiang’s view could be backed by CMC’s joint efforts with Tencent in buying into Hong Kong listed Meiker International Holdings which is seen as a potential listed shell company for CMC’s media and sports sectors.

Overall, China will see large quantity of capital flow into sports industry, soccer especially, in a short time but the broadcast market would take a predictably longer time for to digest.