In this big year for sports, how can content platforms leverage Olympic traffic?

Why do live broadcasting and rebroadcasting rights for the Olympic Games, which are held every four years, become the focus? This article will explain the reasons and is recommended for companies or individual business owners.

The quadrennial Olympics is approaching. As a top sporting event, platform live broadcast and broadcasting rights have become the focus of attention.

At present, the rights-holding broadcasting platform for the 2024 Paris Olympics has been settled. As the all-media rights-holding broadcasting organization, China Central Radio and Television enjoys the full copyright of the Paris Olympics and the exclusive rights to related broadcasting reports. In terms of broadcasting rights, in addition to the three major platforms of Migu Video, Tencent Video and Kuaishou, this year, Douyin has also been added as the rights-holding broadcaster of the Olympics for the first time.

The Olympic Games are a large-scale sporting event with great influence and wide audience, and have always been an excellent opportunity for content platforms to attract fans and traffic. During the Olympic Games, users are enthusiastic and all platforms are eager to catch the "traffic express train". Related content emerges in an endless stream. What are the characteristics of the content styles of different platforms? What does sports hotspot bring to the platform?

1. Douyin and Kuaishou enter the game, and short video platforms seize the Olympic traffic

As a short video platform that has obtained the copyright of Olympic events many times, it is not surprising that Kuaishou has obtained the broadcasting rights for the Paris Olympics. In recent years, Kuaishou has continued to increase its investment in sports events. From the official partner of the CBA in 2019 to the 2024 Paris Olympics, Kuaishou has reached copyright and content cooperation with more than 50 international events such as the NBA, the Champions League, the NFL, and the MLB. In major events, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, etc.

As the Paris Olympics approaches, a certain sports atmosphere can already be felt on Kuaishou. Currently, Kuaishou has officially launched an Olympic theme page with the slogan "Go to Kuaishou and follow the Olympics". Users can not only learn about the holding information of this Olympics on the countdown card, but also see detailed introductions and past materials of the Olympics.

Image source: Kuaishou screenshot

In terms of Olympic-related content, there are hot topics such as "When the stars of humanity shine at the opening ceremony of the Olympics", "Countdown to the Olympics", "Xie Zhenye leads three post-00 young players to Paris", "Antetokounmpo serves as the flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics", and "The schedule for the Paris Olympics table tennis final is released", allowing users to keep up with the latest developments.

As a participating country, China's citizens are very concerned about national athletes. On Kuaishou, one can see videos such as "Deng Yaping reveals details of preparations for the Paris Olympics. The national table tennis team has fully studied its opponents and hopes to win all championships" and "Ma Long is competing in the Olympics for the fourth time. As long as he has passion in his heart, he will always be in his prime." Topics such as #Ma Long will compete in the Olympics for the fourth time this year and #Accompany the national table tennis team to compete in Paris have also been derived.

In addition, as the Paris Olympics approaches, past highlights such as "Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics" and "Chen Long's winning moment at the Rio Olympics" are also very popular on the site.

Kuaishou has nearly 200 million core sports-interested people, and 520 million users consume sports content monthly. Kuaishou said that with the help of the 2024 Paris Olympics, it will further integrate commercial ecological resources such as e-commerce, local life, and short dramas to create new consumption scenarios such as "sports + short dramas", "sports + e-commerce", and "sports + local".

Compared with Kuaishou, Douyin started late in the copyright of world-class sports events. Douyin's broadcast of the Qatar World Cup in 2022 was a landmark event for its entry into sports events. The live broadcast of this event had a total of 10.6 billion viewers and 1.3 billion user interactions, contributing to multiple hot spots. In 2023, Douyin continued to increase its stake in sports events and became the rights holder for the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou.

At this year's Paris Olympics, users can watch Olympic events on demand and full replays on platforms such as Douyin and Toutiao. Douyin will also launch inside and outside stadium information, multiple exclusive sports programs and other content.

Image source: Tik Tok screenshot

Douyin revealed that during the Paris Olympics, many active athletes will use short videos and live broadcasts to share their training, daily life and post-match reflections. Retired athletes and celebrities will also launch multi-dimensional content such as event interpretation and sports science popularization to show their style inside and outside the stadium, accompany netizens to watch the games, create more vivid and novel interactive forms, and enrich the viewing experience.

At present, Douyin has already seen hot topics such as "About 9 million tickets sold for the Paris Olympics", "Progress of construction of venues for the Paris Olympics", "Dresses for the Chinese delegation at the Paris Olympics", "Wu Yanni: Paris is done", and "Curry shows off his final makeup photo for the Olympics". The #ParisOlympics topic has been viewed 2.75 billion times, with creators from multiple fields including @PlanetResearchInstitute, @EntertainmentRose, @SeniorViewerLiuGenhong, @EntertainmentMeowSauce, and @GeniusLittleCharon participating.

2. As long video platforms increase their investment, which one is more attractive, Migu or Tencent?

Among the platforms, Migu Video has the most rights. Migu has the right to provide the 2024 Paris Olympic Games program in the form of real-time broadcast, delayed broadcast, on-demand (including replay), and short videos. "Real-time broadcast" is the focus of its rights, which is almost equivalent to allowing users to watch the event at the speed of live broadcast.

Compared with short video platforms, Migu Video has set up an Olympic Games column with more systematic and comprehensive content. On the column banner, hot information such as "Olympic support team assembles! Submit your articles to share a 200,000 yuan prize", "Sun Yingsha is listed as the most noteworthy athlete at the Paris Olympics", "Excited! The Chinese Olympics through a century of time and space", and "Youth has no limits! Chinese new stars look forward to shining in Paris" are played in a scrolling manner.

Image source: Migu Video

Migu Video also has modules such as torch relay, official announcement of the big list, Paris view, and Ping Ran Xin Dong, allowing users to watch the Olympics in multiple dimensions. For example, in the torch relay module, Migu Video closely follows foreign developments and takes users to watch the Paris Olympic torch relay.

In addition, users can also see information such as the Chinese team's preparation status, Olympic knowledge, viewing guides, and the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony, giving users a rich content experience.

In fact, sports events have always been the strong point of Migu Video. In addition to the Olympics, users can also watch live sports events such as the European Cup, Chinese Super League, Premier League, NBA, FA Cup, UFC, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, etc., creating a one-stop sports content service platform.

Tencent Video, another long-form video platform that has obtained the broadcasting rights for the 2024 Paris Olympics, currently does not have much information about the Olympics on the platform. The main promotions on the homepage are popular dramas such as "Longing 2", "A Wonderful Night of Pleasure", and "You Are More Beautiful Than the Starlight". In the sports section, there are no videos related to the Olympics. The popular ones are NBA, F1, WWE, U17 men's basketball and other sports events. Only when you actively search for the keyword "Paris Olympics" can you see the special column.

It is understood that the entity that has obtained the copyright of the video-on-demand and short videos of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games is Tencent. Thanks to Tencent's huge content system, users can also watch this Olympic Games through channels such as Tencent Sports, WeChat, Tencent News, Tencent.com, QQ, QQ Browser, Weishi, and Tencent's self-made programs, and obtaining Olympic information will be more convenient and informed.

3. Without access to Olympic copyrights , how can social platforms find other ways out?

Weibo, as a social opinion field, is an important venue for the fermentation and spread of hot events. As the Olympics are approaching, there are already many hot searches on Weibo, such as "I have to stay up late to watch the Olympic Games again", "Countdown to the Olympics", and "The French Olympic team's dresses are made of LV".

In addition to focusing on hot events, Weibo also generated related topics such as #1,000-priced drones recreate China's Olympic highlights#, #B-side life of athletes#, #those athletes who missed the Olympics#, and #Wang Yibo will pass the Olympic torch#. Users actively discussed the topics, creating a strong Olympic atmosphere. In addition, related brands will also take advantage of hot topics to share Olympic traffic.

Image source: Weibo screenshot

Xiaohongshu does not focus on sports itself, but participates in the Olympics from a more divergent perspective. For example, the entry "Seeing the brilliant civilization of mankind through the opening ceremony of the Olympics" is very popular on Xiaohongshu and ranks first on the hot list. At present, the number of notes related to the Paris Olympics on Xiaohongshu has reached more than 120,000.

In fact, it is not difficult to understand why various platforms want to participate in the Olympics. On the one hand, top sports events have a wide audience, which not only helps to attract new users to the platform, but more importantly, it can increase user activity. On the other hand, Olympic events, as hot content, are an important source of secondary creative content and self-made programs for users, and can well supplement the platform's high-quality content.

What cannot be ignored is that the broadcasting rights of top sports events are backed by high copyright fees. According to public reports, the copyright fee for the 2016 Rio Olympics was as high as 100 million yuan; in 2019, Tencent paid 1.5 billion US dollars to acquire the 2020-2025 NBA China digital media rights; for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, it is reported that Migu and Douyin spent more than 1 billion yuan for the broadcasting rights.

The broadcasting rights of top sports events can bring certain positive benefits to video platforms, but it is uncertain whether they can achieve commercial profits. Yu Lingxiao, CEO of New England Sports, once publicly stated that the income from copyright distribution accounts for 80% of their total revenue, which means that the revenue contributed by paying users and advertising is only about 20%. At present, there is no news that the platform will redistribute the broadcasting rights of the Paris Olympics.

For the various platforms that have obtained the broadcasting rights for the Paris Olympics, it may be necessary to re-examine the return on investment of the copyrights of top sports events in terms of content and business.

Author: TopKlout

Source: WeChat public account "TopKlout (ID: TopKlout)"