The English Premier League has locked up a distribution deal with PPTV which allows the digital broadcaster to show matches in the Chinese market for three years starting with the 2019-20 season. The deal reportedly has PPTV paying $700m over the course of three seasons, an amount which absolutely dwarfs the $60m cost of the current Chinese rights package held by Super Sport Media Group.

The Chinese deal pushes the Premier League’s booked revenue for the 2019-22 rights period up to $1.2b with US rights already sold to NBC in a six year deal worth $167m annually. International revenue has been a major source of commercial expansion for the English top flight with American and Asian markets in particular seeing strong growth; for comparison the total value of all international rights in the 2013-16 period was ~$2.7b, while the league has been able to realize nearly 50% of that with its growing dominance of just two markets.

On the other side of the deal PPTV has guaranteed itself a spot in a Chinese pay-TV market hungry for sports content. The jump in rights value is likely influenced by two factors in the Chinese market, a shift in focus away from share towards revenue and a rapidly developing market for paid content. Chinese rights have been heavily discounted over the past several years as Scudamore and the Premier League have pursued a strategy of spreading the league’s reach in the country, with eyes and ears properly piqued they now seem ready to begin monetizing that foothold.

Similarly PPTV, a subsidiary of Suning Holdings the retail group which owns Italian club Inter Milan, has made a significant bet on the value of the Chinese market that brings the world’s favorite soccer content to one of the world’s largest markets for sports media. PPTV’s landmark deal continues a trend of frenetic Chinese investment in the soccer world, this time with another player entering the media portion of the supply chain.