In the future, major sports events will inevitably be indispensable for TV broadcasting, and the sale of TV broadcast rights will even become the most important income for sports events. The broadcast rights revenue of many large-scale events is calculated in units of "100 million", compared with the 2016 Rio Olympics, the broadcast rights income is as high as 4.1 billion US dollars. The most lucrative professional sports league in the world is the NFL for rugby, whose television rights can sell for $7.2 billion.

Television was invented in the twenties, and in the thirties there was a television station, and the first live television broadcast in history was in 1936, when Germany was the first to broadcast the Berlin Olympics live, which was also the first to broadcast sports competitions in the palace. However, in that era, the television media used sports events as a public resource and broadcast them for free, so there was no talk of selling TV broadcast rights at that time.

In 1941, the NFL sold the rights to its championship and runner-up finals for the first time, which was the first time in the world to sell the television rights of a sports game, but with the advent of World War II, the television broadcast of sports games also stalled.

The sale of television rights to early sports competitions was also a very controversial thing, taking the Olympics as an example, in the 1948 London Olympics, the BBC paid £1,000 to buy the rights to the London Olympics that year, you read that right, not 10 million pounds, but 1,000 pounds. At that time, the broadcasting rights of an Olympic Games were only worth £100, and you couldn't even buy a nice car.

This Olympic Games is also the first time that the IOC has charged for the TV rights of the Olympic Games, but in fact, within the Olympic Committee, there is also a controversy over whether to collect the TV rights of the Olympic Games, because many people in the IOC adhere to the non-commercial Olympic ideology, as long as it is related to business, they will oppose it.

At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the major broadcasters in the United States refused to pay the IOC for broadcasting, on the grounds that the Olympic Games were news, and the broadcasters were also reporting the news when they reported on the Olympics, and from the perspective of press freedom, the IOC should not charge fees. This incident also put the IOC in a difficult situation, and in the end the IOC had to amend the Olympic Charter and make a special provision: the television rights were sold by the Olympic Organizing Committee with the approval of the IOC, and the income was distributed according to the provisions of the document.

Another major sporting event, the Football World Cup, was first broadcast in 1954. As for the broadcasting rights to the Winter Olympics, it was sold in 1960.

After 1960, the paid broadcast of sports competitions became the norm, and at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, the television rights were sold for a full 1 million dollars, and since then the television broadcast of the Olympic Games has entered a booming era.

The 1964 Tokyo Olympics were broadcast live to the world for the first time via satellite. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, for the first time, live color television and slow-motion film technology were introduced. For the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the TV broadcast fee had reached 32 million US dollars, and for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, the TV broadcast rights reached an unprecedented 287 million US dollars. As a result, the Los Angeles hosts have made huge profits, and hosting the Olympics is no longer a matter of losing money. It is precisely because of the money that can be made by hosting the Olympic Games that countries have begun to be keen to apply for the Olympic Games.

In the 80s, television has been popularized in developed countries, but at this time, all sports leagues of some scale will be broadcast live on television, not to mention the Olympic Games, the World Cup and other world's top weight events, the United States' four major sports leagues, Europe's five major football leagues, all began to broadcast live television, sports broadcast rights also soared. The sale of television rights became the main source of income for sporting events.

Among the four major sports leagues in the United States, the NFL was the first to sign a broadcast contract with a television station was the NFL of football, and after the NFL sold the television rights to a final in 1941, it was not until 1951 that the NFL officially moved the professional league to the television set. The NBA, which Chinese are most familiar with, did not appear on TV for the first time until 1958, and in the 1958-1959 season, the NBA's TV rights were sold for $39,000, which was considered a cabbage price at the time.

Football NFL TV rights have always sold well, the sport is well tuned on television, and as one of the first professional leagues to be televised, the NFL has amassed a large television audience. Things were much worse in the NBA, which was heavily indebted and nearly collapsed several times until David Stern became NBA commissioner, ushering in a new era. Under David Stern's leadership, the NBA also earns more than 50% of its total revenue from television rights.

As a time-traveler, Chen Qiang certainly knows the importance of television broadcasting to sports events, so he plans to broadcast the grand occasion of the first All-Star Game of the New League through television, so that the entire American television audience can watch this year's All-Star Game.

In this era, the TV rights of sports events cannot be sold for money, and Chen Qiang does not plan to make money by selling the TV rights of the All-Star Game.

What Chen Qiang wants is to expand the influence of the basketball league, and televising the All-Star Game is obviously the best way to expand it.

In addition, Chen Qiang also hopes to take the opportunity of televising the All-Star Game to make arrangements for the future televised regular season games. What Chen Qiang is pursuing is not the current income from TV broadcasting rights, but to be able to seize the opportunity in TV broadcasting.

In the future, the NFL will be able to buy $7.2 billion for TV rights, while the NBA for basketball will only sell for $2.6 billion, just over a third of the NFL, and one of the big reasons is that football has a larger TV audience. A large part of the reason this is because NFL was the first sports league to be televised.

In the 40s, the NFL was also in a state of half-death and on the verge of bankruptcy, but in 1951, the NFL signed a television contract with American television stations, but completely saved the NFL. At that time, many families in the United States already had television sets, and a variety of television programs were gradually enriched, but the television broadcast of sports games was a gap, and the addition of the NFL filled this gap. And because NFL football games are the only professional sports leagues that are televised, the audience in front of the TV has no choice, and only football can watch sports games if everyone wants to watch them, which also makes the NFL cultivate a large audience base.

For American families in the fifties, sitting by the TV on a weekend afternoon to watch an NFL football game became almost a habit, and this habit has directly influenced generations of Americans. Imagine if you started watching NFL games as a child, you would definitely be an NFL fan when you grew up. Thanks to the influence of television broadcasting, football has gradually grown into the number one sport in the United States.

It can be said that in terms of TV broadcasting, the NFL of football is to seize the opportunity, and step by step, step by step. If the NFL hadn't preemptively deployed televising, it may still be unknown whether football would have surpassed baseball as the number one sport in the United States.

Now that Chen Qiang has created a new basketball league, he certainly doesn't plan to give this televised head start to the NFL of football. The piece of fat was broadcast on TV, and Chen Qiang decided to eat it himself.

The All-Star Game was a great opportunity, but the first problem Chen Qiang encountered was whether he could technically support the live television broadcast of sports games.

The phone rang, interrupting Chen Qiang's thoughts, and Chen Qiang immediately picked up the phone.

"Mr. Chen, the things you asked me to inquire about have already come to fruition, and with the current technology, it is no problem to broadcast a basketball game on television. The NFL had already tried televising football games three years earlier, and it was said that it took a dozen cameras to complete the telecast. Since rugby can be televised, basketball is certainly no problem. The other man spoke.

A football field is 100 yards long, which is much larger than a basketball court, and the larger the sports field, the more camera slots are needed and the more complex it is for television broadcasting. For example, in the case of a table tennis match, a camera can be broadcast, and if it is aimed at the table tennis table, the audience will see it clearly; For basketball, you need at least three or four camera slots; In rugby, it takes more than a dozen cameras to capture the movements of the players in the field; In Formula 1, you can't broadcast without hundreds of camera slots.

So in that respect, it's much easier to broadcast a basketball game than a football game, at least with the technology of 1944.

The other person on the phone continued: "Mr. Chen, it is not difficult for the TV station to broadcast a basketball game, but according to the information I have gathered, the TV station is not interested in broadcasting a sports game. ”

"Why? Do TV stations think that broadcasting sports games won't bring ratings? Chen Qiang asked.

"No, the TV station thinks that the cost of broadcasting sports games is too high, and the broadcast site needs to be arranged with a lot of camera positions, which requires a number of professional photographers, and a large number of lenses will also bring complex broadcast work, in addition to the transmission of broadcast signals, it also costs money." The other end of the phone explained.

"As long as the TV station is willing to broadcast it, I can bear part of the broadcast costs." Chen Qiang said.

"Mr. Chen, I don't think you need to spend this unjust money. Although many American households have televisions, they are far less popular than radios, so you can consider using a radio to broadcast the game, so that more Americans will listen to the game, and the cost is lower, you have to set up a camera position, you don't need a camera, you just need two commentators to explain into the microphone. The other end of the line suggested.

"There will be radio broadcasts, but I would prefer to have television broadcasts." Chen Qiang replied.

Radio broadcasts of sports games were nothing new in the forties, when almost all major sports games in the United States were broadcast on the radio, especially in the MLB of baseball, where every game could be listened to on the radio. For example, there is a scene at the end of the movie "Captain America", when the American team wakes up, a game that the American team has watched is playing on the radio.

In the 90s, when domestic football was just beginning to be professionalized, there were many local radio channels that would broadcast football leagues live on the radio, and old fans should remember this. In those days, you would take a taxi and you might hear the announcer live on the radio.

In the United States in the 40s, radio broadcast sports games were already a very mature industrial chain, and there were many sports practitioners who relied on commenting games on the microphone to eat, and some ace commentators would also get relatively high remuneration.

It is much easier to broadcast a game on the radio than it is to broadcast a game on TV, because there is no camera, it is all up to the announcer to talk with one mouth, and the broadcaster does not have to cut back the camera. Of course, the viewing experience brought by the sound is much worse than the viewing experience brought by the picture, and as far as sports competitions are concerned, the picture can bring the audience the most direct sensory stimulation. A game with pictures but no sound, and a game with sound but no pictures, I believe the audience will choose the former.

And the radio broadcast of the game has great limitations, because the audience cannot see the game picture, so the broadcast effect depends on the commentator. Some powerful commentators can rely on their voices to drive the atmosphere of the audience and make the audience indulge in the game; Some mediocre commentators will probably just dry recount the process of the game, and the audience will find it boring and boring.

The broadcast of sports games on the radio was the mainstream at that time, and Chen Qiang certainly would not give up. But if it can be broadcast live on TV, Chen Qiang will still do live TV, even if he will lose some money in the end, Chen Qiang will not hesitate.

Cultivating a large number of TV viewers for basketball is a long-term strategy, and you may lose some money at the beginning, but as TV sets become more and more popular, and TV broadcasting technology continues to develop and improve, the money lost will be earned back thousands of times over. Once the audience in front of the TV gets into the habit of watching basketball, it's hard to get them to change.

As a time-traveler, Chen Qiang has personally experienced the process of the NBA's entry into the Chinese market, and then slowly developed into a behemoth. When the NBA first entered China, it relied on CCTV Sports Channel to broadcast so many games from time to time, and slowly gathered fans, and finally after more than 20 years of market cultivation, China has hundreds of millions of people who pay attention to the NBA, although these people may not be fans, but they are the NBA's customer group, which can bring benefits to the NBA.

In other words, if the CCTV sports channel broadcast not the NBA, but other games, then it may not be the NBA that became popular.

In terms of the development of a professional sports league, live TV is really the most important strategic high ground. What Chen Qiang has to do now is to occupy the strategic high ground of TV broadcasting first, so in the future, Chen Qiang will have the opportunity to build his basketball league into the No. 1 sports league in the United States!

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