Wired and wireless broadcasting rights to CJ ENM, signing a three-year, 135 billion won mega deal
A big change is coming to KBO League viewing.
The KBO announced on Thursday that it has signed a contract with CJ ENM for the wired and wireless broadcasting rights for the 2024-2026 KBO League, and will broadcast the wired and wireless broadcasts through TVING, Korea’s leading OTT service, for three years starting in 2024.
Through the agreement, CJ ENM will have the domestic wired and wireless broadcasting rights for all games of the 2024-2026 KBO League, as well as the exclusive right to resell the broadcasting rights.
To ensure a fair and objective selection, the KBO held a competitive tender for the selection of the preferred bidder from December 4 last year to January 3 this year.
The criteria for selecting the preferred bidder consisted of a technical evaluation (50%), which was composed of various evaluation item indicators such as business execution capabilities, business strategy and operation plan, system and infrastructure construction, content activation plan, coverage plan, and related business performance, and a price evaluation (50%), which evaluated the bid proposal price.
On January 5, CJ ENM, which received the highest overall score, was selected as the preferred bidder at an evaluation meeting involving the board of directors of KBOP, the marketing subsidiary of the KBO, including the marketing directors of each club, and on January 8, the KBO and CJ ENM held preliminary negotiations for about 40 days before reaching a final agreement on February 16.
With this agreement, baseball fans will be able to freely utilize short game videos of less than 40 seconds on all social media platforms, including YouTube and Instagram. For the past five years, KBO game footage has been restricted on social media platforms for baseball fans. However, starting this season, baseball fans will be allowed to actively create memes and viral videos. The KBO and its teams hope that this will make the league more accessible to new baseball fans and expand its core fan base by allowing fans to utilize various videos.
In addition, the KBO and its 10 clubs will also create a wider range of content including game footage from the KBO League through their official social media channels, providing baseball fans with a variety of ways to enjoy the league that were previously unavailable.
The KBO has been in priority negotiations with CJ ENM for a broadcasting rights contract and has discussed various service cooperation plans to improve the viewing experience and broadcast quality of the KBO League, as well as to provide baseball fans with more ways to enjoy the KBO League.
CJ ENM will officially provide additional features such as full game highlights and full game replays, as well as 10 clubs’ dedicated channels, a time machine function to replay missed scenes, and Tibbing Talk, a chat function, starting on March 23, the opening day of the regular season.
In particular, during the regular season, CJ ENM will select a game once a week and broadcast it live, including a special preview show that starts at least 40 minutes before the start of the game, in-depth interviews with managers and players, and a post-game review show.
CJ ENM will offer a special event to watch the KBO League for free from March 9 to April 30, when the exhibition games begin, and all users who sign up for 메이저토토사이트 the TVING service during that period will be able to watch the KBO League live for free.
In addition, CJ ENM will produce and broadcast the exhibition games that are not available on TV, so that baseball fans can watch all the exhibition games of their favorite teams.
After the free offer period, customers can purchase a subscription to watch all KBO regular season and postseason games. In particular, the ‘Ad-Free Standard’ plan, which will be released today (April 4), allows users to enjoy all KBO League games in 1,080P or higher quality for the lowest price of 5,500 won per month, as well as 160,000+ contents including various entertainment, dramas, and movies. In particular, the KBO League live streaming service will not run pre-roll ads and will enhance the viewing experience by enabling baseball fans to watch games faster. Except for the live broadcast service, all services such as full game replays, full game highlights, VOD, and text graphic replays will be provided free of charge through TVing.
In addition, the service will also be available on smart TV platforms, where it was previously difficult to access KBO League content, by installing the Teevee Smart TV app to enjoy the KBO League on the big screen.
This wired and wireless broadcasting rights deal is the largest wired and wireless broadcasting rights deal in the history of Korean professional sports, totaling KRW 135 billion over three years (KRW 45 billion per year on average), and the average annual amount has more than doubled from the previous wired and wireless broadcasting rights deal, totaling KRW 110 billion over five years (KRW 22 billion per year on average).
The KBO is taking a big step toward industrializing the KBO League by signing the largest wired and wireless broadcasting rights deal in history, following a three-year TV broadcasting rights deal with three terrestrial broadcasting companies worth a total of KRW 162 billion (KRW 54 billion per year on average).