Sponsorship fees of Team China hit 200 million yuan

‍‍Breaking the monopoly of CCTV in broadcasting

Tiao Power (laterally translated) offered an ambitious bid for the broadcast rights of Team China, breaking the long lasting monopoly by CCTV in broadcasting the games of Chinese national football teams in China. The open bid for the broadcast rights has significantly increased the income of Team China as the revenue of broadcast rights increases to 70 million yuan from a couple of millions yuan.

Besides with Team China, supporters of them will benefit from the change of broadcast rights as well. Because the fans will have more platforms to choose when watching the games of Team China instead of relying on CCTV merely. One of the advantages is that fans could still watch games even if the game gav way to more popular ones or the signal was not decent on one platform. For instance, CCTV5 recently replaced the game between China and Haiti with World Figure Skating Championships while supporters of Chinese football still watched the game on other platforms. According to statistics, there were more than 10 sites that broadcasted that game.

More importantly, the CFA has reached an agreement with Tiao Power to guarantee the ratings, which means the broadcast rights packages ought to be sold cleverly. 

Setting the new sponsorship fees record 

Coco Cola had also reached a sponsor agreement with Team China before the friendly match between China and Haiti, which would contribute to the increasing income of Team China. They will provide a great deal of money every year for Team China and will offer drinks as well. 

In fact, Team China had begun the fundraising since the end of last year when Nike and Adidas were competing to be the equipment sponsor. And Nike beat Adidas with a deal of funding Team China 100 million yuan every year. According to recent news, Nike would be willing to increase the amount of money with an additional clause that boots providers other than Nike would pay certain amount of money if Chinese football players were wearing non-Nike boots. However, Team China did not interest in this proposal as they had previously stated that they would not promise any monopoly in boots sponsorship.   

It is estimated that Team China will receive nearly 200 million yuan from sponsors including Nike, Coco Cola, Continental and the broadcast rights. And Beijing Hyundai, as the major sponsor of Team China, will possibly upgrade the deal with Team China this year since many international companies have showed interests in sponsoring Team China. The current deal, which gets Team China 40 million yuan every year, is about to expire in 2016. It is agreed that others could negotiate with Team China after May 2015 if the condition was reached.

However, it does not mean that Beijing Hyundai will dispose the partnership with Team china since they have the priority to renew the contract. In other words, Beijing Hyundai will remain the first choice of being the major sponsor of Team China if they can make a satisfying offer. In this way, the new contract would be worth more than 60 million based on conservative estimation. And the total income will be promisingly around 250 million to 300 million, which will be used to develop football among the youths and others.

Source: Sina