On the afternoon of the 13th, fireworks are going off to signal the end of the Korean Series during the 5th game of the professional baseball '2023 Shinhan Bank SOL KBO Postseason' Korean Series between LG Twins and KT Wiz held at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Olympic-ro, Songpa-gu, Seoul.
Online video service (OTT) Tving (CJENM (035760)) won the rights to broadcast professional baseball, setting the stage for its pursuit of Netflix, which has an overwhelming lead in the OTT industry.
It is interpreted as a strategy to improve profits by attracting loyal sports customers as subscribers.
However, as more than 100 billion won was bet on the broadcasting rights, opinions are divided on whether to resell them to other platforms.
From a baseball fan's perspective, they may feel that their options from Naver, SK Telecom's (017670) Adot, and LG U+'s (032640) Spoky have been reduced as a result.
According to the industry on the 9th, TVING was selected as the preferred negotiating party for the 2024-2026 KBO (Korea Baseball Organization) League wired and wireless broadcasting rights business the previous day.
If you are selected as a wired/wireless broadcasting rights provider, you will have the right to broadcast professional baseball games, highlights, major events, etc. on portals, mobile carriers, OTT, etc. excluding TV, as well as resale business rights.
To satisfy baseball fans, Tving plans to operate channels for each team, create a viewing environment that can be accessed quickly with two clicks, and provide multi-view split viewing support.
In addition, the plan is to lead a new baseball cheering culture by adding functions and content to maximize the fun of baseball fans, as well as 'TV Talk', a party-style viewing function, and 'Time Machine function', which allows you to rewatch missed scenes. 파워볼실시간
Typically, OTT has encouraged subscriptions through original content such as dramas and entertainment. Therefore, discount events for ticket prices were often held in conjunction with the release of highly anticipated games.
However, such original content has the disadvantage of requiring enormous production costs and requiring a steady supply of successful works to prevent subscription cancellation.
On the other hand, sports not only take place in 'seasons' (periods), but also have a fixed fan base, which has the advantage of having a large so-called 'lock-in effect'.
In fact, Coupang Play, a latecomer to OTT, has significantly increased the number of users by focusing on sports broadcasting. There was a time when it surpassed Tving in terms of monthly active users (MAU).
As this precedent proved the effectiveness of sports broadcasting, CJ ENM bet a total of 120 billion won over three years, around 40 billion won per year. It is interpreted as a strategy to absorb as many baseball fans as possible ahead of the merger with the Wave.
As more than 100 billion won is being invested, the possibility of reselling TVing's broadcasting rights seems to be low. From the perspective of TVING, which decided to invest in order to secure paid subscribers, there is not much incentive to expect from reselling broadcasting rights.
In this case, there are concerns that people who watch baseball on Naver or other platforms will have fewer viewing channel options.
Additionally, if OTTs that have secured broadcasting rights stick to paid broadcasting, there is a possibility that there will be a backlash from viewers who are accustomed to watching for free.
Some speculate that TVING may conduct both free and paid broadcasts by differentiating game picture quality and advertisements. Regarding this, TVING said, “Nothing specific has been decided at this time.” 카지노사이트