Top of the big era

Zhou Buqi came to Manchester United for business this time, mainly to ask about the documentary.

He had already made up his mind.

From now on, Manchester United will shoot a documentary every season, which requires directors and photographers to regularly follow players to the training ground, competition venues, and locker rooms to film, including exclusive interviews from time to time.

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

The total production cost reached 5.7 million pounds, and the TV broadcast rights in the UK market alone reached 6.5 million pounds.

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

The documentary has a total of 5 episodes, from Ronaldo's departure, Beckham's return, to the joining of Robben, Bale, Yaya Toure and others, to the final league championship, Champions League runner-up, and Ferguson's bold words. Will retire unless he wins another Champions League title 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 2009-10 season, and the emotional fluctuations are weak. Not to mention anything else, the regret of Ronaldo leaving the team and the excitement of Beckham's return were not fully displayed.

Lawrence said in this regard, "Documentaries can't just review what happened, they should also be emotional, and it is best to give the audience something to think about."

Zhou Buqi said: "For Manchester United's documentary, making money is only one aspect. It should also have a more important business positioning. It should be like a sharp ax to break through the restrictions of the fan circle and attract more non-stop fans through wonderful content. Manchester United fans come and watch and let them become Manchester United fans."

Lawrence sighed and proactively admitted his mistake: "The documentary team in the past was found locally in the UK. They know football better. This was a mistake on my part. Documentaries are video works, and they should focus more on film language and plot. , rhythm control, rather than football presentation."

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

Lawrence said solemnly: "I am very disappointed with the documentary team here in the UK. I have contacted Ziweixing Global and next season's documentary will be outsourced to Focus Features."

"Okay, everything is difficult at the beginning. After all, we have a good start. Won't the TV rights be paid back?"

"This is the high value of Manchester United's brand."

“Have you contacted Netflix?”

"not yet."

Lawrence shook his head.

Zhou Buqi looked back at Sun Wanran who was following him, "Has Netflix started to develop the UK market?"

Sun Wanran pursed her lips and said with a smile: "It's done, and it has begun to take shape. It seems to have 350,000 paying users. I heard that it seems that it is developing the German and French markets recently and is cooperating directly with Ziweiyun."

Zhou Buqi said: "After two rounds of TV broadcasts, let's go to streaming media and cooperate with Netflix,"

Lawrence asked tentatively: "What about the fee?"

These days, the streaming media industry has just emerged, and there is no relatively unified standard for copyright prices, and prices are almost always asked at random. The cooperation between Manchester United and Netflix can be regarded as a related transaction to some extent, and the transaction price... is basically decided by Boss Zhou.

However, it is difficult to make a simple decision without Zhou Qi.

It would be best to come up with a comprehensive charter with Netflix.

European football is conservative, but there has never been a lack of followers. If you see who is doing well, you will learn from it. In the past, documentaries were basically shown on TV stations.

It can make money, but the money earned is basically divided by the film and television companies, and the club can only get some licensing fees for filming documentaries.

All the money was made by the middlemen!

But Manchester United's documentary is different. Manchester United wants to shoot the documentary themselves and then invites a documentary team to produce it. If you invest your own money and do it yourself, the copyright belongs to you, which is an advantage. The disadvantage is that Manchester United has to bear the risk of making the film and distribute it themselves.

To this end, Zhou Buqi poached Joseph Delap from Time Warner and asked him to serve as Manchester United's vice president of commercial affairs, in charge of copyright operations. And with the resources of Ziweixing Global, it is very easy to do it.

Then, the money-making effect is immediately apparent.

According to Delap, the documentary's production costs were recouped through broadcast fees in the UK alone. 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 contract that has been signed is already worth US$22 million.

Even after deducting the 10% commission from the documentary team and the 10% commission from Ziweixing Global Agency... relying solely on the global TV copyright, Manchester United's documentary can make a profit of 20 million pounds.

This is despite the fact that the quality of the documentary is unsatisfactory.

If the shooting is better next season, the profit may be even higher.

However, this kind of success of Manchester United is difficult to replicate.

Not even Real Madrid or Barcelona.

Real Madrid and Barcelona's world influence is no worse than Manchester United. However, Real Madrid and Barcelona's influence is mainly in Latin-speaking areas, such as Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and other countries.

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

They cannot afford the high royalties.

Therefore, the "documentary + TV station distribution" model is difficult to effectively promote, but streaming media platforms are different. Streaming media platforms can reach every fan in the world vertically.

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, which makes TV stations unwilling to purchase Real Madrid documentaries for broadcast. This not only reduces the revenue 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. Put all the fragments together and you will have a very large group with a very large income.

If you want to encourage the European giants to make documentaries and jointly promote the development of the European football industry, you cannot rely on the TV station distribution model. You must use the global distribution of streaming media.

It’s Netflix that pays to directly buy out the streaming rights.

If the buyout fee is low, the club will make no money, but they still don’t want to buy it; if the buyout fee is high, the club will make money, but Netflix may lose money.

Ziweixing Digital Media is positioned as a commercial intermediary for the football industry under the guise of “Internet”.

After the emergence of streaming media distribution, shooting sports documentaries will definitely have great prospects. It's not just as simple as selling the streaming rights to Netflix and earning a very stable buyout fee. This underestimates 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 the Manchester United documentary into pieces, and excerpting some wonderful short films or interesting scenes from time to time to hang on YouTube, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook and other platforms, this is the media influence of the public and it is shaping the brand value of Manchester United.

How to improve brand value?

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

The same goes for Manchester United.

Through constant repetition through new media platforms, many fans may not pay too much attention, but over time, the impressions will accumulate little by little, and they will slowly become Manchester United fans.

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

Manchester United's content can attract traffic. If all the European giants are mobilized...

That will form a football content industry.

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

It has not only made money for Manchester United, but also for Ziweixing Digital Media, an intermediary in European football. The most important point is that through these high-quality football contents, it has brought traffic to many of Ziweixing's Internet products.

In this process, of course, new media platforms are also indispensable in building momentum for player blind boxes.

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

Looking around the world, only Zhou Buqi can make such a big move.

This is a very complex and huge commercial idea. Zhou Buqi felt that he should find an opportunity to bring all parties together to establish a large project called "Internet-based Football Tools". All parties responded positively and echoed each other. , each build momentum, share resources, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

This matter needs to be carefully planned, Lawrence's level is a bit low.

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

"Authorize first?"

Lawrence was worried.

First, the rights are given to Netflix for broadcasting. Then when negotiating the price, Netflix will just lower the price casually? It's like if your daughter is pregnant with the neighbor's boy, why should you raise the price when you want a betrothal gift?

Zhou Buqi waved his hand and said, "There's no need to worry, this is a big deal! If you really do it, even if your copyright price is lowered, Netflix won't agree! If you want to make money, you must first cultivate and educate the market."