Sina Reveals NBA Partnership Details
National Business Daily, 10/19/10
Chinese internet company Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) has disclosed details of its partnership with the NBA, revealing that Sina will have online broadcasting, VOD and marketing rights for three NBA seasons over the next four years.
Though neither company revealed the size of the deal, COO Du Hong said that it exceeds what Sohu (Nasdaq: SOHU) paid for online rights to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. An industry source estimated the value of the deal between RMB 40 mln and RMB 50 mln.
CEO Charles Chao said Sina will construct the NBA's official Chinese-language website as well as provide web-based marketing. Sina will give a share of advertising revenue to the NBA as well as pay licensing fees to broadcast games online.
The NBA will also license content for an official Sina Microblog and WAP mobile website, and Sina has been authorized to develop an NBA casual game.
With the exception of Tencent (0700.HK), all of the NBA's other partnerships have reportedly expired, including Sohu and TOM Online (2383.HK), which will no longer broadcast live games, and KongZhong (Nasdaq: KONG), which will no longer offer NBA mobile news. Tencent only has partial rights to broadcast regular season NBA games, and the NBA does not plan to renew the contract once it expires. According to a source within Sina, Sina will have exclusive online live broadcasting rights to regular season games. Sina will also have exclusive live broadcast rights to the Conference Semi-Finals, Eastern and Western Conference Finals, and the NBA Finals. With the exceptions of CNTV and Tencent, no other website will have live broadcast rights to any games, and Sina will live broadcast at least 200 games each season, far more than CNTV or Tencent.
Chao said that prior to the agreement, NBA-related content accounted for half of all traffic on Sina's sports channel, exceeding that of other websites.
Keywords: online advertising casual game Du Hong Charles Chao Internet Tom Online Tencent WAP broadcasting rights Kongzhong Sina Sohu 0700.HK 2383.HK KONG NBA CNTV online gaming online video mobile bulletin NBA China microblogging
Sending
