Can CSL rely on broadcast rights and football lottery?

Chinese Football Association Super League (CSL) is the premier football league in China with 4 current teams leveling on points to top the 2015 campaign after 11 rounds.

Accordingly, thanks to the strong competitiveness which enhances the fun of the competition, CSL has witnessed increasing attendance than that of last year's campaign.

But the CSL has been long challenged by difficulties in boosting the operating revenues significantly. Some once argued that CSL was a highly money-consuming league let alone a league to make money from. And the argument could be largely supported by the fact that only 5 CSL teams managed to secure net income in last season.  

Despite that the CSL reached a remarkable income of 400 million yuan in 2014, each club only shared 10 million yuan of it, which was far too little to financially support the operations of teams.

However, it appears that the football reform scheme by Chinese government will potentially boost the CSL clubs' revenues in several ways.

First of all, a large amount of money is expected to be invested into CSL in the coming years under the background of football reform as CSL has become an independently operational entity since last year. There have been several links to CSL clubs in recent months.

Secondly, broadcast rights will be a growth point with great potential. Currently the fees for the broadcast rights of CSL games are relatively low compared to that of those successful leagues such the Premier League. As reported, the broadcast rights of 2015 CSL campaign were sold at roughly 70 million yuan, out of which the 16 clubs would finally get 2 to 3 million yuan.

But the good news is the capital market is rather optimistic about the prospect of CSL, said Feng Shubiao, the deputy general manager of Yinhua Fund. And Feng also gave a number as he believed CSL would grab as much as 4.5 billion yuan from broadcasters within 5 years.

What's more, sports lottery might be an unexpected idea to increase revenues for CSL since it is not a bad way to engage more people to the sport. Liu Weidong, the managing director of CSL, has disagreement with the current sports lottery which involves other leagues rather than Chinese leagues. Liu said that sports lottery in China ought to correlate with the sports there in order to engage more fans and increase the incomes.  

Overall, the major challenge that CSL faces is to significantly improve the operation revenues. And with the empowerment by governmental football reform, CSL appears to be worth investing in at the moment. Moreover, the broadcasting rights of CSL will seemingly roar in the coming years. And football lottery is seen as another way to help increase incomes.