Entitled "China: What next?", the SPORTEL and TV sports markets expert panel session saw speakers representing media rights company MP & Silva, leading Chinese digital sports media platform Sina Sports and China’s leading Internet-based eco-sports company Le Sports discuss the issue.

Hang Yu, vice-president of strategy at Le Sports, claimed the pay-television model "has to be there" in China.

Last month, Le Sports signed a strategic partnership agreement with events broadcast firm China Sports Media (CSM), giving the sports arm of LeEco Holdings Ltd the exclusive global broadcast rights to the Chinese Super League (CSL) for the next five seasons.

In a deal worth £292 million ($414 million/€374 million), officials claimed the latest broadcast technologies would be used, including virtual reality, which it is hoped will result in a significant rise in overseas viewers for China's top football league.

CSM previously spent 8 billion renminbi yuan, or $1.25 billion (£865 million/€1.1 billion) to broadcast CSL over the same period.

But under the new agreement, LeSports' websites and mobile applications will have exclusive rights to show CSL games.

Lei Zhenjian, Le Sports' chief executive, revealed the company is also planning to charge viewers for CSL games from 2018.

"When we decided to do the CSL deal, with CSM, we clearly stated that the deal will be in two phases," said Yu here today.

"It’s a five-season deal, beginning with two seasons on the exclusive basis of digital platform live streaming.

"Plus from the third season, we will launch the whole new pay-product on CSL.

"This is the main thing many people ask me; why are you doing that in the domestic league?

"I say the importance of domestic sports property in China is in no doubt.

"The value behind it is huge."

In January, Le Sports announced a wide-ranging partnership with Major League Baseball (MLB) which saw it become an official strategic partner of MLB in China mainland, Hong Kong and Macau, for a three-year period.

As part of the first mass-market MLB media agreement in China, Le Sports holds exclusive media rights in China to broadcast 125 MLB games per season, along with Mandarin-language MLB programming, through its internet platform, mobile applications, and over-the-top content (OTT) devices.

In addition to live streaming games, Le Sports has rights to rebroadcast those games through video on demand.

Also present on today’s panel was Jim Small, the Asia Pacific vice-president for MLB, who was asked about the subscription/non-subscription debate by moderator Richard Welbirg, senior reporter at TV Sports Markets.

"I think subscription versus non-subscription models from a rights holders perspective, whether that’s in China or anywhere, there is certainly a market for subscriptions for our core fan that wants to be serviced in a way that we wouldn’t be able to in a non-subscription world," he said.

"But with a non-subscription format it really creates demand and in China, as a relatively new sport, that’s what we’re looking for right now - to create demand."

"We’ve obviously looked at the subscription model in the past and we look at our fans," said Li.

"We’ve been around for 15 years and we have very loyal fans and a very large base of fans - we have 20 million fans on a daily basis that come to our site.

"So we listen to them and what they want us to provide to them and that's interesting content, that’s live content, that’s non-live content and if we feel that the subscription model is something that we’re looking to, that’s something that we can definitely try somewhere down the road.

"As part of our EPL deal with Super Sports, the subscription model is something we are trying with them."

Beatrice Lee, the Asia Pacific managing director for MP & Silva, says she thinks the pay-television model is "ultimately the way to go".

"Consumers realise nowadays that they’re not just paying for the content, they’re paying for the quality, they’re actually paying to have more control to have the choices and the freedom to watch what they want to watch at any place, at any time," she said.