Mainland Chinese web entertainment portal LeTV has become the world’s first internet company to win exclusive broadcasting rights to the English Premier League.
LeTV made the jubilant announcement today, in front of more than 700 reporters from Hong Kong and mainland China, that it had acquired the rights to three seasons of the popular football games in Hong Kong from next year onwards.
It will be the first time the city’s residents can view some of the EPL games in top-quality 4K webcasting, backed by 600 content delivery network (CDN) nodes around the world and 10T bandwidth supported by LeTV Cloud.
Mok Chui-tin, LeTV’s chief executive for Asia-Pacific, said Hong Kong was the right place for his company to expand as it had the most mature market in the region for paid entertainment and was backed by a mature legal framework.
“Technology changes the way people access entertainment,” Mok said. “We have more content available on the internet, live and on demand.”
LeTV had already filmed a HK$20 million drama series, he said.
The acquisition of EPL exclusive rights – reportedly costing US$400 million – alongside the launch of Le Sports were to show LeTV’s determination to make Hong Kong an important base.
“We don’t want to just do a Hong Kong version of LeTV. We want to make LeTV Hong Kong and meet the needs of Hong Kong audiences.”
Lei Zhenjian, chief executive of Le Sports, said sports would bring down cultural walls between Hong Kong and mainland China as the people of both regions were passionate about sports.
The announcement event was also graced by football stars Peter Schmeichel – former goalkeeper for Manchester United – and Chan Siu-ki of Hong Kong.
