Revenue challenges
After owning the English Premier League copyright from January 1, 2026 to the end of the 2030-2031 season, the problem posed for FPT Play (under FPT Telecom) is the revenue problem. Before FPT, K+ owned the English Premier League copyright for a long time. They spent a large amount of money, but then suffered losses and left the Vietnamese market.
“The challenge for a unit that owns the English Premier League copyright in Vietnam is always there, because the copyright price will definitely be expensive, not cheap at all. K+ has stopped playing, they have many years of exclusive broadcasting of the tournament, but their business method does not attract many viewers.
In general, there are many reasons for K+'s problem, but from a business perspective, their profits and losses also come partly from the fact that the copyright price is too high, affecting their production as well as selling their packages," M.A. Le Anh Tu, lecturer at the Faculty of Public Relations - Communications, University of Economics and Finance, Ho Chi Minh City shared with Lao Dong.
With FPT Play, Mr. Tu has many reasons to believe that the unit will not repeat the problem like K+. He analyzed: "The new unit has more expectations of being more effective in exploiting the copyright of English Premier League television. The first reason is that they have a larger customer base than K+.
In addition, they are also not only a multi-platform television content production business unit but also do business in broadcasting infrastructure, Internet telecommunications infrastructure, so they can combine Internet packages, both creating content and television packages...".
From these factors, according to Mr. Tu, the added value for users will be higher, thereby attracting more customers: "In addition, their package is also likely to be cheaper than K+, because if their number of users is large, the ability to reach the capitalization point will be faster, and the price will decrease.
According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Tuan - Director of Phuc Nguyen Media Company, with the issue of advertising exploitation, FPT Telecom will also face challenges.
Mr. Tuan shared: "The challenge for FPT Telecom when exploiting online advertising is how to control the content when providing multi-platform, this is not only a headache for technology companies but also belonging to the awareness on social networks to selectively remove harmful advertisements when attaching copyrighted content.
Dealing with the problem of watching illegal football
Another problem FPT Play faces when owning the English Premier League copyright is the problem of copyright infringement. According to statistics from the tournament organizers, in the two seasons 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, they have detected and prevented 7,000 violating domain names in Vietnam.
However, pirated websites still continuously change domain names, forms and servers, causing many difficulties in control.
To prevent this, the Premier League organizers and the copyright holder in Vietnam, formerly K+, have organized many activities. They have launched the "Boot Out Piracy" campaign to warn fans about the risks of watching illegal online tournaments in Vietnam.
Some major cases have been handled. For example, in 2024, the Hanoi People's Court sentenced BestBuy IPTV, a system that illegally broadcasts more than 10,000 international television channels, including English football, marking a step forward in handling online copyright infringement in Vietnam.
With FPT Telecom, they also have their own solutions, different from previous units.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Mr. Hoang Viet Anh - Chairman of the Board of Directors of FPT Telecom, FPT Group emphasized: "Copyright infringement is a prominent issue in the Vietnamese market. And any content from entertainment to sports, especially top sports, must face this difficult problem.
We are actively coordinating with functional agencies and state management to have effective copyright protection plans. This is what FPT Play has been, is and will continue to strongly implement, right from before having the English Premier League copyright.
In addition, we also have experience and proactively apply technology in copyright protection, from applying Digital Rights Management technology on the system, to increasing monitoring and removing illegal links or applying account authentication methods, limiting sharing...".
However, according to Mr. Hoang Viet Anh, one of the best ways to reduce viewing through illegal channels is a reasonable price policy so that Vietnamese people can easily access the Premier League.
When using FPT's service packages, just add from 59,000 - 100,000 VND depending on the area or payment method, and customers can watch the full and complete 380 matches of the tournament. The advantage of this service package is to ensure the best experience for customers.
When the price to be paid is suitable for the customer's ability to pay, along with the quality of the tournament and good service, we believe that fans will support suppliers, join hands to push back the rampant piracy on the market," Mr. Viet Anh emphasized.
