小红书拿下 2026 世界杯转播权：一个"种草"平台为什么要做体育

Today we'll talk about

a news story about an internet company.

It happened

on May 28.

Xiaohongshu announced:

it has obtained

the broadcasting rights

to the 2026 World Cup.

You might ask:

isn't Xiaohongshu an app

for looking at pretty photos?

How is it starting to do sport?

This is exactly what makes this news story

interesting.

Let's first talk about

what Xiaohongshu is.

Xiaohongshu is one of China's

most distinctive

internet companies.

At first

it was a small community

for shopping and reviews.

Later it slowly grew

into

a place where people share their lives.

If you want to see where's fun to visit,

open Xiaohongshu;

if you want to see which clothes look nice,

open Xiaohongshu;

if you want to see how to cook a dish,

open Xiaohongshu.

So Chinese people have a word,

"种草" (zhòngcǎo) —

seeing someone share something

and wanting it yourself.

You could say Xiaohongshu

is the headquarters of "种草."

How big is Xiaohongshu today?

It has over 400 million monthly active users.

"月活" (yuèhuó)

means people who use the app

within a given month.

Four hundred million plus —

that is a

very big number.

But Xiaohongshu has one feature:

its users —

women outnumber men.

And by a lot.

Many people feel

Xiaohongshu is a

fairly "feminine" app.

For Xiaohongshu,

this is a

both-happy-and-worrying situation.

The happy side is

the platform has found

its own identity.

The worrying side is,

to keep growing,

it must also win

the male audience.

So what do male users

like to watch?

The answer is clear:

sports.

Especially football.

So this time,

Xiaohongshu's grabbing the World Cup rights

has actually been long in the making.

They say

right now on Xiaohongshu

the users interested in football

already exceed one hundred million.

Over the past year,

football-related content

has more than doubled.

On May 28,

Xiaohongshu officially announced:

it has partnered with China Media Group

to obtain the rights to broadcast the World Cup.

Now in China

the platforms that can live-broadcast the World Cup

are only three:

CCTV,

Migu,

and Xiaohongshu.

How many matches in total?

104.

The 2026 World Cup

is bigger than before —

48 teams competing,

39 days long.

Xiaohongshu says:

all 104 matches

can be watched free on Xiaohongshu.

With the app — yes,

with the web — yes,

and even casting from your phone to a TV —

also yes.

Xiaohongshu has also hired

Fan Zhiyi,

Xie Hui and others —

familiar faces

of Chinese football —

to commentate throughout.

For users,

this news is direct:

watching football has become more convenient

and cheaper.

But from a business angle,

the story is actually more complex.

Let's think about it:

why is Xiaohongshu doing this?

The first reason

is male users.

We just said

Xiaohongshu needs more men.

The World Cup is

one of the world's most powerful

draws for male attention.

Through the World Cup,

Xiaohongshu hopes

to push its daily active users

from its current

roughly 170 million,

up to

200 million.

The second reason

is monetization.

This time Xiaohongshu has stated

it will, for the first time,

fully open up brand partnerships

inside the match live-stream rooms.

That is to say,

during a live broadcast,

beside,

below,

inside —

all of these can carry ads.

This is a

very big business.

And there's an interesting backdrop, too.

Four years ago,

in the previous World Cup,

Douyin was also

an important broadcasting platform.

But this time,

Douyin did not go after these rights.

Why?

Some say

the rights are too expensive,

it just isn't worth it.

Others say

Douyin is already too big,

spending more to acquire users

doesn't mean much anymore.

So this time

the opportunity has fallen into Xiaohongshu's hands.

At this point,

I want to share

a thought of my own.

This case

is actually part of China's internet —

a long-running story:

every distinctive platform,

after it grows up,

eventually wants to do "everything."

Xiaohongshu

originally was just a

small community for product recommendations.

Now it wants to do news,

wants to do sport,

wants to do many more things.

There's an upside:

users can, in one place,

do many things —

convenient.

But there's also a cost:

when a platform becomes ubiquitous,

our attention

and our data

will also concentrate

more and more there.

Finally I want to ask you:

Are you willing

for all of your activities

to take place in one platform?

Or

do you prefer

different things

on different apps?

Think about it.

Okay.

That's all for today.

Talk tomorrow.