RugbyPass, an over-the-top service from Coliseum Sports Media, is further expanding into Asia by partnering with Alisports and NeuLion.
Alisports, established by e-commerce giant Alibaba along with Sina and its media resources, serve as the local digital partner for RugbyPass in China as the service is set to launch two new channels in the large market.
One of the planned channels is set to feature all live and on-demand content in Chinese and is free for all users in China to run on a dedicated rugby channel on streaming platform Youku. The other channel will initially broadcast in English and is expected to launch in early 2017 as a premium subscription service featuring content available on the existing RugbyPass platform, including every International game held that season along with the British & Irish Lions Tour to New Zealand.
“Rugby has great potential to grow as both a spectator and player sport in China,” Coliseum Sports Media CEO Tim Martin said in a statement last month. “Delivering access to the best Rugby content in the world on RugbyPass will play a big role in enabling that to happen. The two-channel strategy is key, putting free rugby content in front of a potential audience of 600 million people while those who want more or really want to follow a particular team can then subscribe to the world’s leading Rugby OTT service in RugbyPass.”
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Governing body World Rugby had previously announced that Alisports as part of its 10-year, $100 million investment in growing the game in China would carry rugby content on its TV and digital platforms.
NeuLion announced last week that it was expanding its partnership with Coliseum Sports Media in Asia to bring rugby throughout the continent on RugbyPass. The NeuLion Digital Platform is a fully managed end-to-end platform providing licensed components from content ingestion, encoding and management to content security, monetization and monitoring that together streamline the delivery process of the high-quality content.
“Asia and China have a significant role to play in rugby’s future,” Martin said in a statement. “Our recent partnership between NeuLion, World Rugby and Alisports, Singapore’s return to the World Rugby Sevens circuit, the participation of the Sunwolves in this year’s Super Rugby, and the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan, all point to an exciting future for the game in terms of participation as well as viewer engagement.”
RugbyPass was launched in Asia in February and is also available in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.