Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1656 Internetized Football Tool
Zhou Buqi came to Manchester United for business this time, mainly asking about the documentary.

He had already made a plan.

From now on, Manchester United will make a documentary every season, which requires directors and photographers to follow the players to the training ground, game field, and locker room to shoot, including some interviews from time to time.

Now that the documentary has been filmed, it will premiere on Sky Sports at the end of this month, followed by Manchester Local and Manchester United TV.

The total production cost reached 570 million pounds, and the TV rights in the UK market alone reached 650 million pounds.

This is undoubtedly another very successful business designed by Zhou Buqi for Manchester United.

The documentary has 5 episodes in total, from Ronaldo's departure, Beckham's return to the team, to the joining of Robben, Bale, Yaya Toure and others, to the final league championship, Champions League runner-up, and the rhetoric released by Ferguson. Will retire unless he wins another Champions League for Manchester United!
To be honest, the quality is average.

On the one hand, it was restricted by the sports department, and many contents were not allowed to be filmed.

But the main reason is that the level of the production team is not enough.It is equivalent to reviewing Manchester United's 09-10 season, with weak emotional fluctuations.Not to mention anything else, the regret of Ronaldo leaving the team and the excitement of Beckham's return have not been fully displayed.

Lawrence said, "Documentaries can't just review what happened, they should also be emotional, and it's best to bring thinking to the audience."

Zhou Buqi said: "Manchester United's documentary, making money is only one aspect, and it should have a more important business positioning. It should be like a sharp axe, breaking the restrictions of the fan circle, and attracting more fans through exciting content. Manchester United fans come to watch and make them Manchester United fans."

Lawrence sighed and took the initiative to admit his mistake: "The documentary team in the past was found locally in the UK. They knew more about football. This was a mistake in my work. Documentaries are video works, and more should be film language and plot. , rhythm control, not the display of football."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Football is very important, but times are changing. This is an era of entertainment, an era of chasing stars. The core of filming documentaries is to film stars. Ferguson is going to retire, so he can shoot a special episode "Glory Ends: Asia Alex Ferguson"; Gareth Bale will wear the No. 7 jersey next season and can film "The Inheritance of No. 7"; Rooney's core role is getting stronger and stronger, Scholes will retire again, You can make a "New Leader: The Spirit of the Red Devils"; as well as the Asian market, let's have a story about the growth of "Asian Ball King Park Ji-sung". To make a documentary, you must not only have the elements of movies and football, but more importantly, grasp the pulse of the times , To understand what the market really likes to watch.”

Lawrence said in a deep voice: "I'm very disappointed with the documentary team in the UK. I've already contacted Ziweixing Universal, and the next season's documentary will be outsourced to Focus Pictures."

"Okay, everything is difficult at the beginning, after all, you have a good start, and the TV copyright will be paid back."

"It's the high brand value of Manchester United."

"Have you contacted Netflix?"

"not yet."

Lawrence shook his head.

Zhou Buqi turned his head and looked at Sun Wanran who followed him, "Has Netflix's UK market started?"

Sun Guanran pursed her lips and said with a smile: "I did it, and it has begun to take shape. It seems that there are 35 paying users. I heard that it seems to be developing the German and French markets recently, and is directly cooperating with Ziweiyun."

Zhou Buqi said: "Two rounds of TV broadcast, let's go to streaming media, cooperate with Netflix,"

Lawrence asked tentatively, "What about the cost?"

These days, the streaming media industry has just emerged, and there is no uniform standard for copyright prices, and almost all of them ask for random prices.The cooperation between Manchester United and Netflix is ​​more or less a related transaction, and the transaction price is basically up to Boss Zhou.

However, it is not easy to make a simple decision on this matter.

It is best to come up with an overall charter with Netflix.

European football is conservative, but there has never been a shortage of followers, so learn from whoever does well.In the past, documentaries were basically shown on TV.

It can make money, but basically all the money earned is distributed by the film and television company, and the club can only share some licensing fees for filming documentaries.

All the money was taken away by middlemen!

But Manchester United's documentary is different. Manchester United wants to make a documentary by itself, and then invites a documentary team to make it.It is an advantage to invest and do it yourself, and the copyright is owned by yourself.The disadvantage is that Manchester United has to bear the risk of filming and distribute it by itself.

For this reason, Zhou Buqi recruited Joseph Delap from Time Warner and asked him to serve as the vice president of Manchester United's business, in charge of copyright operations.With the resources of Ziwei Star Global, it is very easy to do.

Then, the money-making effect is revealed at once.

According to Delap's introduction, the documentary's broadcast fee in the UK alone has earned back the production cost.In addition, there are several major markets such as the United States, Canada, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. The TV broadcast contracts that have been signed so far are worth 2200 million US dollars.

Even after deducting the 10% commission for the documentary team and the 10% commission for Ziweixing's global agency distribution...only relying on the global TV copyright, Manchester United's documentary can make a profit of 2000 million pounds.

This is the case when the quality of the documentary is not satisfactory.

If the filming is better next season, the earnings may be even higher.

However, Manchester United's success is difficult to replicate.

Not even Real Madrid or Barcelona.

The world influence of Real Madrid and Barcelona is no worse than that of Manchester United, but the influence of Real Madrid and Barcelona is mainly in Latin-speaking regions, such as Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and other countries.

The population is large, but the economic strength is too poor.

They cannot afford high copyright fees.

Therefore, the "documentary + TV station distribution" model is difficult to effectively promote, but the streaming media platform is different.The streaming media platform can vertically target every fan in the world.

For example, there may be Real Madrid fans in Thailand who also want to watch Real Madrid documentaries.However, there are too few local Real Madrid fans in Thailand, so the TV station is unwilling to buy Real Madrid documentaries to broadcast.This not only reduces the income of Real Madrid documentaries, but also prevents fans from seeing what they want to see.

Streaming media solves this problem and can integrate "fragmented fans" scattered around the world.Aggregating all the fragments together creates a very large group and a very large income.

If you want to promote the European giants to make documentaries and drive the development of the European football industry together, you can't rely on the distribution model of TV stations, it must be the global distribution of streaming media.

That is, Netflix paid the money and directly bought out the streaming media copyright.

If the buyout fee is low, the club has no money to make, and they still don’t want to shoot; if the buyout fee is high, the club makes money, and Netflix may lose money.

The positioning of Ziweixing Digital Media is the commercial intermediary of the football industry in the cloak of "Internet".

After the emergence of streaming media distribution, sports documentaries will definitely have great prospects.It’s not just about selling streaming media copyrights to Netflix and earning a very stable buyout fee. This is too underestimating the significance of the Internet.

Zhou Buqi has entrusted Lang Weiyi to reconstruct Manchester United's new media ecological matrix.

What does it mean?
For example, cutting Manchester United’s documentary into pieces, intercepting some wonderful short films or interesting pictures from time to time and hanging them on YouTube, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and other platforms, this is the media influence of the public and is shaping the brand value of Manchester United.

How to improve brand value?

The easiest way is to repeat, over and over again.Like the melatonin advertisement, even if the audience doesn't like it, it can be broadcast over and over again. When the audience gives gifts, the product "melatonin" will naturally appear in their minds.

The same goes for Manchester United.

Repeatedly through the new media platform, many fans may not pay too much attention, but after a long time, the impression will be superimposed little by little, and they will slowly become Manchester United fans.

However, the content on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MSN, AOL and other platforms is incomplete. If users want to watch the full version, please go to Netflix to buy a membership or Goal, a subsidiary of Ziweixing Digital Media, to pay for on-demand.It is equivalent to using high-quality content to attract traffic to your own products.

The content of Manchester United can attract traffic, if all the European giants are mobilized...

That would create a football content industry.

Fans all over the world will be driven by this new media game, and introduce users to their own Internet products through the traffic of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MSN, America Online and other platforms.

It not only made money for Manchester United, but also made money for Ziweixing Digital Media, a middleman in European football. The most important point is that these high-quality football content has brought traffic to many Internet products under Ziweixing.

And in this process, of course, the new media platform's promotion of players' blind boxes is indispensable.

This is an overall plan involving many industries including Manchester United, European football, intermediaries, film and television companies, Internet platforms, blind box sales, new media operations, and streaming media content.

Looking at the whole world, only Zhou Buqi can play such a big skill.

This is a very complicated and huge commercial idea. Zhou Buqi thinks that we should find an opportunity to gather people from all sides together and set up a big project called "Internetized Football Tools". All parties responded positively and echoed each other. , each building momentum, resource sharing, mutual benefit and win-win.

This matter needs to be planned carefully, Lawrence's rank is a bit lower.

Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "Don't worry about the copyright fee in advance. After the TV premiere is over, I will authorize the content to Netflix and let them broadcast it."

"Authorization first?"

Lawrence was a little worried.

First broadcast the copyright to Netflix, then when negotiating the price later, didn't Netflix lower the price casually?It's like my daughter is pregnant with the child of the neighbor's kid. How can I ask for a price when I want a bride price?
Zhou Buqi waved his hand, "There's no need to worry, this is a big deal! If you really do it, even if your copyright price is lowered, Netflix will not agree! If you want to make money, you must first cultivate and educate the market."

(End of this chapter)