Soccer fans around the world go mad for the World Cup every four years. Many fans here used to watch the games live on TV, even though the time differences often meant staying up late at night, or sometimes into the early morning. Video websites have a much bigger slice of the action this year and their popularity has sent some of the listed companies' stock prices rocketing. Mi Jiayi has more.

Eyeballs have been glued to screens since the World Cup opened last Thursday, but some of those screens are showing stock prices for video websites listed in the U.S. Over the past five days, Bilibili has seen its price jumping 14 percent, iQiyi has risen 27.3 percent, and Huya has soared 34.1 percent. The skyrocketing prices have a solid foundation. We've been talking to people on the Shanghai street, where it turns out watching the World Cup online has become essential.

"There are so many choices online. Watching TV is free, but you can't watch a game later on demand."

"I specifically bought a one-month membership on Youku, so I can watch the World Cup there. I like it because I can chat with other viewers online at the same time."

The video sites' competition for users is fierce. Before the World Cup started, two domestic websites -- Youku and Migu -- announced they had gotten the broadcast rights. Other platforms are only allowed to use short clips of each game, as part of their own content. This year's World Cup is the first since the boom in the online short video industry, and many players are eyeing this opportunity to gain more viewers and users. Pear Video is one of them, and it has set up a special page for the World Cup on its app and website, and hired several hundred vloggers in Russia and other countries to film short videos related to the football extravaganza.

SUN XIANG, OPERATION DIRECTOR PEAR VIDEO "What's different between this World Cup and past ones is that more and more short videos are appearing on social media, and they get sent around the internet very quickly. A lot of people who may not have been interested in the world cup before are now getting involved. We're seeing on our website that the more popular topics are not just about the World Cup, but about related news and gossip."

For example, one of the most popular videos on Pear's website is about the hairstyle of the South Korean goalkeeper -- it got almost two thousand likes within the first few hours after it was posted. A recent survey from Tencent shows that 91.6 percent of users this year are getting their World Cup feeds through mobile devices, while only 44.4 percent are watching on traditional TVs.