The cost of Xiaohongshu's World Cup copyright is not as high as rumored, but it is true that the goal is to increase the monthly active users by 50 million.

“Actually, this time the cost is less than what the outside world speculated, less than 1 billion.” Lin Dong (pseudonym), a senior operator at Xiaohongshu, said this to Zhiwei.

On May 28th, Xiaohongshu officially announced that it had won the broadcast rights for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, becoming the only domestic Internet community platform with full rights to live broadcast, on - demand viewing, and short - form videos of the World Cup. Compared with Douyin and Youku, which obtained this copyright in previous years, the price has indeed decreased.

Although the price has dropped, the expectation for the revenue brought by this copyright has not. Xiaohongshu has high expectations for this World Cup.

“At this stage, compared with other platforms, Xiaohongshu needs the World Cup broadcast rights more. Currently, the platform's DAU (170 million) has been stagnant for a long time.” Lin Dong said that Xiaohongshu expects to break through the 200 - million mark in DAU with the help of this World Cup and increase the MAU by 50 million on the current basis of 400 million.

“The current internal atmosphere of the company is that all employees are preparing for battle. The two office locations, SOHO and CapitaLand Crystal Plaza, are always brightly lit at night.”

Perhaps for most people, the first reaction to Xiaohongshu winning the World Cup copyright may be that it doesn't match the platform's tone. Statements like “I'm not sure if guys who like watching football can adapt to Xiaohongshu's judgment criteria” are also common on the Internet.

But if you think about it carefully, the reason is actually very simple: make up for what is lacking.

Lin Dong said: “Currently, there is great pressure on the business side to grow the core user base, especially the growth of male users. There is great pressure to increase the number, and the obvious user growth potential lies with men.”

Regarding why Xiaohongshu spent a large amount of money to become the rights - holding broadcaster for this year's FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Ma Shicong, a senior analyst at Analysys, told Zhiwei that Xiaohongshu's move is to obtain opportunities for further traffic growth by leveraging high - value sports IP events, especially to expand the male user group and the general sports - related user group that had weak relevance before. At the same time, combined with the grass - planting logic, it can expand grass - planting scenarios in industries such as fashion, sports, health, and food and beverage starting from the event content.

On the other hand, Zhuang Shuai, an expert in the retail e - commerce industry and the founder of Bailian Consulting, said: “The characteristic of the World Cup being dominated by male users seemingly doesn't match the tone of Xiaohongshu as a ‘grass - planting’ platform. But this is exactly the result of the platform's gradual layout in the sports field over the years, aiming to optimize the user structure, attract men into the community for a strategic ‘breakthrough’, and at the same time form a full - user - experience integration by leveraging topics related to World - Cup - related football stars, their families and lives, and the check - ins and shopping in the cities and regions where they are located, which are of interest to women.”

In fact, Xiaohongshu has been testing the waters in the sports field for a long time.

During the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Xiaohongshu had already tasted some benefits. Although it didn't have the live - broadcast rights at that time, Xiaohongshu exclusively signed world - class football stars such as Simone Inzaghi, José Mourinho, and Zinedine Zidane, and also gained a lot of sports - related traffic and topic popularity.

In the 2024 UEFA European Championship, Xiaohongshu took a step further and directly invited Kylian Mbappé to be the platform's spokesperson. During the Olympics the same year, Xiaohongshu jointly shot a funny advertisement with Mbappé and Liu Xiang, and a “French - style Mbappé language” quickly gave rise to a lot of secondary - creation content.

After that, Xiaohongshu gradually expanded its steps in the sports field. It successively signed the live - broadcast rights for the Bundesliga, the German Table Tennis Bundesliga, the AFC U - 23 Asian Cup Qualifiers for the Chinese men's national team, and the Northeast Urban Football League, and also undertook a large number of commercial marketing activities for the F1 races.

After practicing for so long, Xiaohongshu is also going all out to prepare for this World Cup.

First of all, the live broadcast will cover all platforms. You can watch the live broadcast for free on the Xiaohongshu App, the web version, and by casting your phone screen.

At the same time, it has invited Fan Zhiyi, Xie Hui, etc. to provide full - time commentary, and launched a daily - updated exclusive column called “Chatting about the World Cup”. Every day at 12 noon, it is jointly created by football commentators and self - media creators, covering event analysis, tactical breakdowns, and interactions with fans.

The App will also customize product functions according to the World Cup, such as exclusive channels, event predictions, and exclusive fan cards.

Zhuang Shuai believes that compared with Douyin and Youku before, Xiaohongshu's differentiated strategy is to rely on its UGC community attribute to “life - orient” the World Cup. By officially inviting commentators and encouraging users to create secondary content, it strengthens the platform's closed - loop of “watching the game → browsing the community → grass - planting”.

At the same time, in order to handle the live broadcast of large - scale sports events and ensure the smoothness of the live broadcast under high - concurrency situations, since March this year, Xiaohongshu has been conducting small - scale traffic tests on the exclusive page for horizontal videos, providing a more suitable viewing and interaction scenario for long - form videos and live - broadcast content. In April, it fully launched free 4K ultra - high - definition videos and supports Dolby 3D stereo sound.

Combined with Xiaohongshu's previous efforts in the medium - and long - form video field, such as motivating creators and adjusting the distribution mechanism to stimulate PGC/UGC, Ma Shicong said that the World Cup, as a top - level sports IP, can enable Xiaohongshu to obtain sustainable content assets (and advertising opportunities), and can also be used as material for PGC/UGC content creation, forming an overall “short - medium - long” multi - level content matrix to complement the content ecosystem.

Zhuang Shuai also believes that this World Cup copyright can be regarded as a strategic step for Xiaohongshu in the video and live - broadcast field, and it will interact with its long - form video layout. Because the World Cup broadcast naturally depends on the content form of horizontal screen, long - duration, and strong real - time performance. The platform has been upgrading the picture quality and distribution mechanism of medium - and long - form videos in 2025, aiming to use the event as a lever to make up for its own shortcomings in the audio - video field.

However, for Xiaohongshu, the difficulty lies in the community operation plan during and after the World Cup.

Just like in the F1 races, currently, a lot of the content that stands out on the platform is not about the performance and level of the drivers, but about check - ins at the Shanghai Grand Prix, the drivers' outfits, and grass - planting of racing suits.

This kind of content may not match Xiaohongshu's original intention of attracting and retaining male users.

Zhuang Shuai believes that if Xiaohongshu wants to exceed expectations after the World Cup, the real test lies in whether it can complete an effective “complete platform operation plan for before, during, and after the event”. In the actual operation process, problems such as poor conversion of brand advertising due to the impact of time differences, loss of core female users due to community atmosphere conflicts, or difficulty in retaining male users due to lack of continuous content are likely to occur.

However, looking at social media platforms such as Weibo and Douyin, these difficulties are inevitable. For Xiaohongshu, which wants to achieve a higher daily active user count, this is a hurdle it has to cross.

This article is from the WeChat official account “Zhiwei”. Author: He Bi, Editor: Da Bing. Republished by 36Kr with permission.