This summer, Chinese audiences have a brand-new way to watch the Olympics. As early as 13 July, China Film Group Corporation announced an exclusive partnership with China Central Television to provide real-time broadcasting services for the games to more than 800 cinemas nationwide through a booking platform. From 28 July to 12 August, the live broadcasts included the opening and closing ceremonies of the Paris Olympics and 20 events, including table tennis, badminton, diving, volleyball, basketball, football, and more. These events cover the traditional strengths of the Chinese team and popular events that are of great interest to domestic sports fans and have a large fan base.
In Shanghai, for example, prices for the table tennis men’s singles bronze medal match and final on 4 August generally range from 30 to 70 RMB (approx. from 4.14 to 9.66 USD), with about 20 cinemas open for the match. Showing the matches requires a minimum number of attendees, which varies by cinema. Some matches require 50 people to proceed, while others need only 2. If the minimum number of attendees is not met for a particular match, the platform will refund the ticket.
The cumulative box office of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics exceeded 1.37 million RMB (approx. 0.19 million USD), with a total attendance of more than 30K people. Young people aged 25 to 29 were the main demographic in cinemas, and second-tier cities contributed nearly half of the total box office. This overlaps with the primary audience for popular films.
The table tennis mixed doubles final on 30 July and the Chinese diving team’s women’s double 10-metre platform event on 31 July were also popular events broadcast live in cinemas. The Weibo topic about the diving competitions, #Group at the cinema to cheer for Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi#, garnered 3.668 million views.
In Europe, such as the UK, it is already common to watch sporting events in outdoor places such as parks and pubs. However, this is the first time the Olympics have been shown on the big screen in China, with many of the theatres involved in the live broadcast being high-end cinema halls, enhancing the audio-visual experience. The related Weibo topic, #What is the experience of watching the Olympics in the cinema#, achieved 523K views, with some netizens commenting: “The super large screen to watch the game, many fans, and a strong atmosphere. Even if you can’t go to the Olympics in Paris, you can still experience immersive viewing in the cinema.”
From an industry perspective, broadcasting the Olympics live in cinemas can attract more audiences, supplement the box office during the off-season with a lack of new films, and increase revenue. For example, as of 30 July 2024, the total box office for this summer’s releases just exceeded 7.5 billion RMB (approx. 1.04 billion USD), compared to over tens of billions of RMB during the same period last year. Poor box office performance, a single mode of profitability, and low usage rates put cinemas under serious pressure. As a result, theatres need to accelerate transformation, and the future of cinemas showing live sporting events and other diversified content is expected to become more common.
