A look at Migu Video: the company’s beginnings, its bid for sports streaming success, and its ties to state media outlet, CCTV.
"你好， 世界杯“ - ”Hello, World Cup." A screencapture from day one of Migu Video's coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, November 20, 2022. The CCTV and Migu Video logos can both be seen in the upper right-hand corner. Credit: Migu Video via Weibo
China’s national soccer team may have failed to make it to the World Cup — for the fifth time in a row — but the tournament in Qatar has still attracted huge online attention. Weibo posts using the hashtag “世界杯" (World Cup) have garnered upwards of one billion reads per day since the competition began.
When it comes to actually watching the games, viewers in China are more likely than not to be doing so by streaming via Migu Video, a subsidiary of the state controlled telecom giant China Mobile.
The Migu Video World Cup 'Metaverse'.
Migu Video has streamed World Cup content before — the 2018 World Cup that was hosted in Russia netted the platform more than 4.3 billion total views. Migu is looking to boost these numbers this time round: it’s launched a ‘Metaverse’ space, where fans can watch the games in virtual reality, and it has promoted its coverage with some big names, including the pop singer Jay Chou and former Chinese team manager Bora
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