LeSports, the sports arm of Chinese Internet company LeEco Holdings Ltd., has launched its VIP paid membership plan on Wednesday, April 6, making mainland China the second region to have the service after Hong Kong, China Daily reported.
"The Chinese mainland launch also represents the most commercially promising and strategically significant deployment of the membership strategy," the company said in a statement.
According to the report, the all-in-one membership subscription package is priced at 590 yuan ($91) per year, which will provide Chinese sports game viewers with access to shows and sporting events through LeEco's rich online broadcasting copyrights, in cooperation with local broadcasters and sporting associations.
The company said that starting April 14, other membership options, such as 159 yuan per quarter and 59 per month, will be also available to consumers.
Since it became independent from LeTV, LeSports has started distributing its businesses across the entire sports industry by combining events operations, streaming content and smart devices with Internet services.
The company received $1.2 billion in Series B financing last month, which brought the company's total investment to $1.35 billion.
"From viewers to users, from free to paid, from passive to interactive, and from single events to the full ecological sporting experience, we're bearing down on the last mile of the development of the sporting sector by addressing a key weakness in the industry," Lei Zhenjian, founder and CEO of LeSports, said. "Only by providing users with compelling value and a satisfying experience can a business truly thrive and prosper. This is the responsibility and mission of LeSports and of all people in the sports industry."
The report said that there is a strong demand for online sports in China as the popularity of sports and the rise of the smartphones and smart televisions have increased.
"There are more than 10 million users watching sporting content via LeSports platform on any given day," Lei said.
As the country becomes aware of intellectual property rights, subscription membership for watching online content also became acceptable for many Chinese online viewers.
"The number of paying viewers in 2015 soared 264 percent to 28.84 million, and is expected to reach 54.41 million this year," according to a report by iResearch Consulting Group.
In 2014, the revenue from online viewing memberships jumped from 1.39 billion yuan ($214.6 million) to 5.13 billion yuan in 2015, up 270 percent.
"The next couple of years will see continued rapid growth in revenues and could reach 18.79 billion yuan in 2018," the consulting company said.
The report, however, said that there is a huge potential for development since the penetration rate of paid users remains low at 5.7 percent.
Sports fans are more inclined to watch live broadcasts and offering them with personalized membership services to meet their unique needs is what LeSports offers.
The company said that the VIP membership scheme is independent from the existing LeVIP Membership system that has access on various display devices that includes PC, mobile, Super TV, Superphone, cinema, and, in the future, Le VR and Super electronic vehicle. The scheme has personalization features, and offers various exclusive event and product services that are available both online and offline.
In addition, the membership scheme provides access to more than 310 blue-chip sporting events and 10,000 individual matches, with 72 percent of it coming from exclusive rights that LeSports has obtained since its establishment.
The LeSports VIP Membership surpassed other sporting TV brands such as ESPN and SKY Sports, as it will provide access to some 1,500 exclusive premium matches.
LeSports' chief content officer Liu Jianhong said during the launch that LeSports is set to spend 6 billion yuan to acquire the rights to premiere sporting events for its VIP members.