Beijing – Letv Sports announced its strategic collaboration with MP & Silva to showcase a stellar line-up of sports content in China.

The partnership comprises Letv Sports’ acquisition of a comprehensive variety of top football properties in the region, including the Italian Serie A TIM, French Ligue 1, The Emirates FA Cup, Sky Bet Football League Championship, Capital One Cup, Scottish Professional Football League, Belgian Jupiler Pro League, the Brazil National Team Global Tour matches, the England National Team and Under-23 Home Friendly matches, and the recently concluded Copa America 2015. A majority of these rights have been acquired on an exclusive basis, which reflects Letv Sports’ ambition and vision in China’s emerging sport media industry.

With the goal of serving passionate football fans across China, Letv Sports plans to broadcast an unprecedented number of more than 1,800 live hours of top football matches per season on its digital broadcast platform with content from MP & Silva. The strategic partnership also includes an additional scope for developing joint projects in the future, which are currently under negotiation.

Lei Zhenjian, the CEO of Letv Sports, applauded the partnership, stating, “As the fastest growing sports company in China, Letv Sports is always looking to establish itself as a leader in this industry and invest in the world’s most compelling sports media rights. We are honoured to establish a close cooperative relationship with MP & Silva and aim to bring the best coverage of sports from around the world to Chinese sports fans. We’re delighted to have MP & Silva as an important strategic partner to help us to realize this goal.”

Marco Auletta, Chief Executive Officer of MP & Silva, also commented on the partnership: “Letv Sports has made impressive strides towards being a major player in the sports broadcast industry, and both our companies share a lot of synergy for potential growth, as well as the same enterprising spirit, ambition and drive for innovation. We look forward to complement each other with more collaborations in the future from this long-term strategic partnership.”

The collaboration between Letv Sports and MP & Silva began in 2012, when the two companies signed a non-exclusive three-season deal for the Serie A TIM and Ligue 1. It marked the beginning of a progressive working relationship between the two pioneers of their own fields.

This announcement adds to the rising profile of Letv Sports, following recent milestones such as Yunfeng Capital, co-founded by Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma, and Wanda Investment confirmed as investors behind the digital media company. In the last few months, Letv Sports has been aggressively ramping up its content acquisition to include media rights for The US Open to its line-up of premium golf properties, the Tour de France, as well as its three-year deal to showcase the Wimbledon Championships last week.

Letv Sports also launched its new running channel to showcase domestic and international races including the Boston and New York Marathons, as well as China’s Shenzhen International Marathon. Most recently, Letv’s ‘Edong’ running mobile application was the top-ranked app in China.