Comparison and Enlightenment of Sport Event Program Market Development Between ESPN and China

ESPN has been the largest sports event broadcast platform in the United States, which not only has rich sports event program resources, but also has mature experience in sports event program market development. However, ability of sports event program market development has been very weak in china. In order to provide some reference for the development of sports event programs in China, this paper analyzed the concept and classification of sports event programs, the background, process and characteristics of ESPN’s sports event program market development, and compared and analyzed the market differences of Tencent Video, Suning Sports and ESPN’s sports event programs by the method of literature and logic. The results showed that ESPN market development had last three stages and had diversified developing channels. Tencent Video and Suning Sports had their own unique profit models. Compared with ESPN, the new media broadcasting platform of sport events was in the initial stage of development and in the stage of loss in China; ESPN focused on shaping the branding of sports event content and invests heavily in creating the appreciation of sports events programs. American audiences had paid for watching games for a long time. Members paid accounts for more than two-thirds of the development of the sports event market; Chinese viewers had a poor idea of paying for watching matches, and member paying for watching matches was in the cultivation period; Although the cost of transferring Chinese domestic sports events had increased significantly, there was still a large gap compared with the four major professional leagues in the United States; The legal protection environment of American sports program was better than that of Chinese. Finally, It put forward the enlightenment that the development of sports event program market in China should improve national sports literacy, produce high-quality sports event programs, improve cooperation among stakeholders in the industry chain of sports event programs, strengthen legal protection of sports event programs, and strengthen governance of sports competition market, etc.