Baofeng enters sports industry as a connector

The Baofeng Group and financial services firm Everbright Securities announced a few days ago that they have acquired a majority stake in MP & Silva, an Italian-owned media rights agency.

Yesterday (7th June), at a conference held in Beijing, the Baofeng CEO Larry Feng announced the establishment of Baofeng Sports, a subsidiary of the Baofeng group. Baofeng Sports, MP&Silva and Everbright Securities will co-operate on media rights, content, internet services and the VR industry.

MP & Silva is a media rights company that owns, manages and distributes sports media rights. The company's portfolio includes international sports content of chiefly football, tennis and motor sports TV rights.

As Baofeng CEO Larry Feng said, “The three things worth investing in, in the sports industry, are football, basketball and top events. The value of NBA is fully exploited. Infront Sports&Media is the best in top events. With sports TV rights for a range of international events MP&Silva is No.1 in the football industry which may be our last chance to enter the sports industry.”

”The Internet will boost the development of the sports industry. Just as the internet has changed entertainment and social activities, great changes will take place in the sports industry too. With new technologies including OTT and Virtual Reality(VR), Baofeng aims to build a stronger connection between content and service, allowing sports fans to enjoy interactions and join communities, instead of just being an audience.” added Feng.

In addition, Baofeng has officially been awarded the 2016/17 season broadcasting rights to China’s top football league, the Chinese Super League (CSL) at RMB 100m annually.

It is worth mentioning that LeSports has already acquired the exclusive global broadcasting rights to the CSL. This came at a price of RMB 2.7b from Ti’ao Power last February. Being the exclusive new media platform, LeSports has the broadcasting rights of all 240 matches while Baofeng Sports and Whaley TV merely own the broadcasting rights of a single match in every round.

As a new power in the sports industry, Baofeng will take full advantage of VR technology, relying on its strength to make a breakthrough into the traditional sports industry. There is no doubt that VR will play an important part in events-spectating in the near future. According to a report from Goldman Sachs, the revenue from live VR broadcasts will be US$750m by 2020 and the figure will rise to 4.1b after five years.

Acting as a connector Baofeng looks forward to wider partnerships with other parts of the sports industry.