Le Sports secures global broadcast rights for CSL

Le Sports, the sports unit of China’s leading online streaming company LeEco, announced a wide-ranging strategic partnership with Ti’ao Power at a press conference, “BigBang” held today in Beijing.

Under the five-year partnership, Le Sports has officially been awarded the exclusive global broadcasting rights to China’s top football league, the Chinese Super League (CSL).

Starting with the 2016 season, Le Sports will live stream CSL matches annually in mainland China, the U.S., Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Canada, and much of Southeast Asia.

Apart from the rights deal, both companies also announced a cross-shareholding plan and agreed to leverage their strengths and expertise in working toward expanding global viewership of the CSL.

CEO of Le Sports, Zhenjian Lei, said: "LeSports is constantly trying to break through the bottleneck of traditional broadcasting using the Internet and innovation. We believe that with Ti'ao Dongli, we will be able to explore new ways to amplify and commercialize the CSL on its way to globalization using our Internet-powered platforms. This will be revolutionary and an example for the entire Chinese sports industry, while also being a part of Le Sports' ecosystem to profit from upstream to downstream."

Starting with the 2016 season, Le Sports and its subsidiaries Zhangyu TV and Soda Soccer will live stream all 240 CSL matches in high definition. 

As part of the partnership, Le Sports is also planning to launch a new product in 2018 that will require users to pay for watching CSL games online.

In 2016, Le Sports will work with Ti'ao Power to test and implement high-speed cameras, 360 degree panoramic shots, as well as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technology. 

Source: Le Sports & Yahoo

Proofread by John Devlin.