Unable to watch the national football team after paying? iQIYI Sports apologizes again and releases compensation plan, with the stock price falling more than 12% this week

Recently, iQIYI Sports encountered technical issues during the live broadcast of the 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifiers match between the Chinese men's national team and the Japanese men's national team, causing some users to be unable to watch the game, which has sparked widespread attention and discussion. In response to this incident, iQIYI Sports has issued multiple apology statements and announced compensation plans.

On the evening of September 5th, the Chinese men's national team suffered a 0-7 defeat against the Japanese men's national team in the first round of Group C of the 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifiers. As CCTV did not broadcast the game, iQIYI Sports became the only domestic broadcasting platform and announced that the game would be pay-per-view. However, shortly after the game started, many netizens reported issues such as lagging payment pages, repeated payments, and inability to watch the game after payment.

iQIYI Sports Compensation Plan

Facing strong user dissatisfaction, iQIYI Sports issued another apology statement on the evening of September 6th, explaining in detail the reasons for the problems: "Due to the enthusiasm of Chinese football fans far exceeding our expectations, there was an instantaneous surge in traffic after the game started, a sharp increase in user payments, resulting in some users being unable to make purchases, and delayed delivery of entitlements after purchase, affecting the user viewing experience."

To compensate for user losses, iQIYI Sports announced the following compensation plan:

• For users who redeemed viewing vouchers repeatedly: the redeemed viewing vouchers have been returned to their accounts.
• For users who made repeated payments: the duplicate payments will be refunded.
• For users whose entitlements were affected during the game: one viewing voucher will be compensated to their accounts.

iQIYI Stock Drops by 2.97%

Despite iQIYI Sports taking remedial measures, most users are not completely satisfied, believing that the solutions in the statement did not fully cover all affected users. Many netizens continue to express dissatisfaction on social media and question the platform's technical capabilities and service quality.

This incident has also had a certain impact on iQIYI's stock price. On September 6th, iQIYI's US stock closed down by 2.97%, with a cumulative decline of over 12% for the week, reducing its market value to $1.881 billion. At the same time, iQIYI's performance is under pressure, as its Q2 2024 financial report shows a 5% year-on-year decline in total revenue and a significant decrease in net profit.

Discussion on Sports Broadcasting Rights

It is worth noting that this incident has also sparked discussions about the copyright dispute between CCTV and iQIYI. CCTV Sports pointed out in a statement that the broadcasting rights for this event are held by the Asian Football Group (AFG), a subsidiary of the Asian Football Confederation, and due to the high asking price, CCTV was unable to obtain the broadcasting rights. This further highlights the fierce competition and high costs in the current sports broadcasting rights market.

With the rise of digital media platforms, the competition between traditional TV media and emerging streaming media is intensifying. Sports events, as important content resources, have become the focus of competition among major platforms. iQIYI Sports, as the center of this incident, its handling and subsequent development will have a profound impact on the entire sports broadcasting rights market