Urawa Red Diamonds v Beijing Guoan - AFC Champions League Group G (Photo : Getty Images)
From video streaming, Chinese company LeTV made a splash on Wednesday at the ongoing CES 2016 in Las Vegas by debuting its Le Max Pro flagship which is the world's first smartphone to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset.
A day after that, reports surfaced that LeTV is now interested in acquiring a 50 percent stake at Beijing Guoan Football Club, reports Chinasportsbeat. The speculation was fueled by surprise visit of Jia Yueting, chairman and founder of LeTV, to the Beijing Worker's Stadium where the professional soccer club is based.
Since the establishment of the professional soccer league in China in 1993, Guoan - established a year earlier - is the only team whose original owner, the CITIC Group, is still the same. Beijing Guoan Football Club also made local sports history by being the first to win thrice the Chinese Football Association Cup.
However, the sports daily reports that in late December, CITIC agreed to sell half of its stake in the club to LeTV. But it was based on the condition that the part owner not changing the color, name and logo of the winning team. With an estimated value of 4 billion yuan ($613 million), LeTV would need to pay CITIC about 2 billion yuan ($306.5 million) to acquire a 50 percent stake in the soccer team.
Before expressing interest in the buyout, LeTV also bought a 20 percent stake in World Sport Group, based in Singapore, in September, making the Chinese firm one of the three major owners of the sports body. Being part the group, which has the exclusive copyright and development rights owner of all games organized by the Asian Football Confederation, indicates LeTV's growing interest in soccer beyond China.
Its foray into sports also gives LeTV the advantage of streaming baseball games after LeTV Sports Culture Develop (Beijing) Co., backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, inked on Thursday a three-year agreement with Major League Baseball, reports Bloomberg.
The deal gives LeTV Sports exclusive rights in mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong to broadcast 125 baseball games annually, to include the entire World Series. About 14 million Chinese viewers visit LeTV Sports per day, which gives it a 3 percent market share of China's online video viewers.
