Scottish Premier League coming to Tencent

Scotland's Premier football League has signed an agreement with China's Tencent.

The agreement will see Scottish football come to Chinese screens for the first time.

Under the terms, Tencent Sports will live stream a selection of matches, in a bid to offer more live sporting action.

Motherwell midfielder Andy Rose (#15) clears the ball after St Johnstone defender Richard Foster (#19) slips during the Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership match between St Johnstone and Motherwell at McDiarmid Stadium, Perth St Johnstone v Motherwell, Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership on August 12, 2017 [Photo: dfic.cn]

In recent months, analysts have commented that Tencent had been falling behind rivals in its sports offerings, particularly of European football.

The Scottish Premier League (officially known by its sponsorship title 'Ladbrokes Premiership') will now join the likes of Germany's Bundesliga and the FA Cup on the Tencent Sports platform.

Tencent has been making significant investment in overseas content in recent months.

In May, we reported that the company had agreed a deal to steam the content of the world's largest music company, Universal.

That deal will also allow Tencent the rights to sub-contract Universal's music to other Chinese companies, and to build a Chinese branch of the famous Abbey Road Studios in London.

As we reported in 2016, the company has already made significant inroads globally into the market dominance of Apple's iTunes and Spotify.

In China, the market for streamed music is enormous, with some estimates placing it at a potential size of 500 million subscribers. Apple and Spotify (which is only available in Hong Kong, but not in the rest of China) have faced strong opposition from local rival QQ music, which is highly popular and also a profitable business.

QQ music came under the umbrella of Tencent in July 2016, after a deal which saw Tencent merge with China Music Corp.