Abhay Singh
In a move to support the esports industry, Huya, the Chinese game live-streaming platform, has made the decision to lower the fees associated with licensing esports content, specifically for broadcasting League of Legends (LoL) matches.
This reduction in fees is part of Huya’s ongoing efforts to provide more accessible opportunities for gamers and fans to engage with competitive gaming content on their platform.
The Board of Directors and the audit committee approved the new agreement
Huya and Tengjing Sports & Culture Development (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., better known as TJ Sports, the tournament organizer behind the League of Legends Professional League (LPL), have reportedly entered into a second supplemental agreement to Huya’s agreement for broadcasting League of Legends matches.
This information was reported by the Esports Advocate. Tencent Holdings Limited and Riot Games are partners in TJ Sports, with the former owning a 66% stake in Huya.
The amended agreement and terms, which would see the aggregate licensing price for 2024 and 2025 reduced to ¥230M RMB ($32.8M), will be authorized by Huya’s Board of Directors and audit committee.
This is a decrease from the previously negotiated ¥300M ($42.8M). Huya was granted exclusive live broadcasting rights for the LPL in mainland China from 2021 to 2022 as part of the initial license agreement.
The company is looking to optimize costs
However, the 2023 modification resulted in the loss of its sub-licensing rights and the broadcasting rights becoming non-exclusive for the ensuing years. The cost was lowered to ¥450M ($64.2M) even with the League of Legends World Championship being added for the years 2023 through 2025.
Since Huya and Tencent’s affiliates are trying to adapt to their present financial situation and market conditions, the charge will now be lowered even further.
The company’s live-streaming revenues dropped from ¥8.2B ($1.17B) in 2022 to ¥6.5B ($930M) in 2023, a concerning 21.3% loss, according to the annual financial report. Stronger competition and lower user expenditure on live-streaming services are the key causes of this.
With this significant financial cut, the business hopes to manage expenses in the face of diminishing revenue while implementing a more stringent content production and procurement screening procedure.
The news was made just a few days before LPL teams take to the European arenas for the World Championship, which gets underway on October 3 in Switzerland.
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