Coupang wins exclusive rights to live-stream Tokyo Olympic Games

South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. has secured exclusive broadcasting rights from three terrestrial broadcasters in Korea to stream the Tokyo Olympic games online, beating out online behemoths Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp. by offering the highest bidding price of 50 billion won ($44.1 million) to make a leap in platform landscape beyond e-commerce.

According to multiple sources from the sports industry and media outlets on Sunday, Coupang has won exclusive online broadcasting rights for the Tokyo Olympics upon defeating Naver and Kakao. Over-the-top (OTT) platform operators must buy broadcasting rights from Korea’s three local terrestrial broadcasters to stream the Games in the country.

Coupang plans to broadcast the Tokyo Olympics via its OTT channel, Coupang Play, which has been expanding sports programs such as exclusive streaming of Korean football friendly matches by mimicking Amazon.com. The U.S. company has also expanded sports programs such as those of National Football League (NFL), U.S. Open, and English Premier League to enhance OTT business.

Coupang entered the OTT market in December last year by offering free video streaming service Coupang Play to Coupang Wow members that pay 2,900 won for subscription a month. There are about 4.7 million Coupang Wow members.

Since then, Coupang has been focusing to differentiate its OTT service by exclusively offering live matches of football matches of Tottenham Hotspur forward Son Heung-min in April, friendly matches of Korean women’s national football team and Volleyball Women’s Nations League.

“Coupang is following the strategy of Amazon.com,” said an industry official who asked to be unnamed. “Amazon.com, which introduced Prime Video as OTT service broadcasted sports matches like the U.S. Open and English Premier League and also produced its own contents.”

But the dear price Coupang has allegedly proposed could stoke complaints from the industry.

Details have not been disclosed, but sources project the e-commerce giant of having offered to pay 50 billion won to three terrestrial broadcasters, almost to cover 70 billion won they had paid to the Tokyo Olympics Committee to broadcast the summer games.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]