Monday, 11th December 2006

HEADLINES OF THE DAY

ESPN STAR Sports Wins ICC Global Rights Till 2015

The International Cricket Council's board named ESPN STAR Sports as its global media and production partner yesterday for its TV and radio rights for ICC events from late 2007 until 2015. The 8-year deal includes 18 ICC tournaments, including 2 cricket World Cups, in Asia (2011) and Australasia (2015), three Champions Trophy tournaments, and the first two ICC Twenty20 World Championships, in South Africa (2007) and England (2009).

While the final price will not be disclosed, it is said to be significantly more than the ICC's previous commercial deal with the Global Cricket Corporation for US$550 million from 2000 to 2007. It is learnt that the rights have cost ESPN-STAR US$1.1 billion. It is also learnt that in the first round, ESPN-STAR had bid only for broadcast rights in India. In the second round, however, it increased its bid to win the global rights.

In the first round, Zee Sports was the highest bidder with $900 million. However, in the second round, as per media reports, Zee Sports bid $850 million. Ten Sports, in which Zee recently bought a 50 per cent stake, bid $825 million jointly with Infront Productions. In the second round, Nimbus emerged the second highest bidder with $900 million. Source: Reuters, The Telegraph United Kingdom, Times Now TV, Indian Television, Agencyfaqs, Stuff New Zealand, Exchange4Media, 12th December 2006

Worldwide audience for EURO 2008

UEFA EURO 2008™ will have unprecedented television coverage around the world after UEFA announced it had agreed the sale of broadcast rights to key territories outside of Europe, including the United States and Asia. After putting the broadcast rights to tender, the European governing body had decided to enter into direct negotiations with broadcasters in certain strategic territories in light of the quality of offers received.

UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson said "We decided to make direct contracts in certain territories - the United States, India, the Middle East, North Africa and Hong Kong." The territories covered by the sale and the broadcasters involved are as follows:

* ESPN has been granted the rights for North America, including pay rights in Latin America. The deal guarantees extensive coverage of EURO 2008™ on the ESPN network including two games on ABC.
* ESPN Star has been appointed for the Indian subcontinent, including sub-licensing to terrestrial networks. The structure of the agreement provides a unique platform for the promotion of UEFA EURO 2008™ in a region encompassing a global population of up to 1.3 billion people.
* Al Jazeera was granted the rights for the Middle East and North Africa. The agreement will ensure a wide coverage of the competition in this region, where most of the 350 million people are huge football fans and that has close links with European football.
* PCCW has been selected in Hong Kong. PCCW's NOW TV is a cutting-edge broadcaster that runs the largest IPTV operation in the world. This agreement will put UEFA and UEFA EURO 2008™ at the forefront of technology convergence with a fully integrated distribution on IPTV and mobile.

To complement this network of broadcasters, UEFA has appointed SportFive to represent the media rights to UEFA EURO 2008™ in all the remaining markets outside Europe. This is a natural extension of the current agency agreement between UEFA and SportFive for the European territories, and will ensure a consistent distribution of the broadcast rights worldwide. Source: UEFA’s Site, Also published in Worldscreen, Houston Chronicle, 8th December 2006

ESPN Star Sports Wins Broadcast Rights to UEFA Euro 2008

ESPN Star Sports has won exclusive broadcast and internet rights for the Indian subcontinent for the 2008 European Football Championship (Uefa Euro 2008). The territories that are covered in the deal are India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives. With this acquisition, ESPN Star Sports will be broadcasting all 31 matches from the tournament live and exclusive.

In addition to its live coverage of matches, ESPN Star Sports will be producing exclusive pre-game, post-game, and halftime shows around Uefa Euro 2008 as well as other localised content designed to broaden the base of football viewers in the Indian subcontinent. This commitment to broadcast Uefa Euro 2008 continues the 14-year association between ESS and Uefa which goes back to the inaugural season of the Uefa Champions League in 1992/3.

This latest acquisition follows recent three-year extensions of rights for the English Premier League for the Indian subcontinent. ESS football coverage also includes the Spanish Primera Liga and the English FA Cup. ESS also annually produces over 1,000 hours of original football programming, including Nokia Football Crazy, Football Focus, Goals, Tiger FC Locker Room, Here We Go, First Edition and Football Extra. Source: Indian Television, Exchange4Media, 8th December 2006

nowTV to Broadcast UEFA EURO 2008 in Hong Kong

PCCW announced that now TV has won the exclusive Hong Kong rights to broadcast Europe's most important footballing event - UEFA EURO 2008. This major football tournament will take place in June 2008 in Austria and Switzerland, with sixteen prominent European national teams participating in 31 matches. PCCW will broadcast the exciting UEFA EURO 2008 matches through multiple platforms. PCCW has exclusive television broadcasting and VOD (Video-on-demand) rights, internet simulcast and mobile video rights.

The acquisition of this important and prestigious football property reinforces now TV's position as Hong Kong's leading pay TV provider. In addition to being the exclusive broadcaster of UEFA EURO 2008 in Hong Kong, now TV will be presenting related in-depth reports, analysis and features specially tailored for the local audience. now TV currently has an installed customer base of 700,000 and has over 120 world leading video and audio channels, many of which are exclusive including HBO, Cinemax, STAR Movies, STAR Chinese Movies, STAR World, ESPN, and STAR Sports. Source: TV Over Net, 9th December 2006, Variety, 10th December 2006

ESPN awarded U.S. TV rights for Euro 2008

ESPN has been granted broadcast rights in the United States for the 2008 European soccer championship. European soccer's governing body said Friday that the American sports network has also purchased the pay rights in Latin America. No financial figures were given. The deal, which guarantees two matches on ABC, was part of what UEFA said was an unprecedented move to boost television coverage around the world of the 16-team tournament. The 2008 event will be co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland.

ESPN Star was awarded the rights in India, including the right to sub-license to terrestrial networks. Al-Jazeera was granted rights for the Middle East and North Africa, while the Hong Kong rights went to PCCW. Source: International Herald Tribune, Yahoo! News, MSN Fox, 8th December 2006


INFO DIGEST

Team Sports Events at Doha 2006 - Did You Know?
* Basketball: Although now a multi- billion dollar industry, basketball was first played by James Naismith, an instructor at a Massachusetts college, and his students with two peach baskets nailed to both ends of a gym and an old soccer ball.
* Field Hockey: The introduction of synthetic surfaces to the hockey pitch has greatly increased the speed of the game and a correctly hit hockey ball can travel at around 160k/mh.
* Football: South American and European countries each have won the World Cup nine times. There has been no other continent which has produced a World Cup Champion.
* Handball: Men’s field handball was played at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin at the special request of Adolf Hitler.
* Rugby: Rugby was traditionally an amateur sport which was thought to discourage working-class participation and gave it a reputation as an upper-class game. So goes the saying: “Football is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians and rugby is a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen.
* Volleyball: Volleyball enjoyed a huge boost during the 1930’s Depression, as people took to the beach as a break from their problems. Its popularity escalated further in the 1960’s when the Beatles turned up to a Los Angeles beach to watch a game.
* Baseball & Softball: Before 1845, the baseball bases were arranged in a U-shape. Posts or stakes were used instead of bases, runs were called ‘aces’ and the first team to reach 21 runs won the game.
Source: Doha 2006 Gold Magazine


SPORTS SHORTS

* Britney Spears' estranged husband Kevin Federline is going back into the ring with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), presumably to help pay his legal bills. The aspiring rapper wrestled WWE star John Cena in October to help promote his debut album, Playing with Fire, and received a resounding chorus of boos from the audience. Federline will appear in a rematch with Cena on New Year's Eve. Source: Hollywood.com, PR Inside, 8th December 2006

* Astro All Asia Networks Plc pay-TV service said that it added 56,500 residential customers bringing the total to 1.97 million customers, representing 36 percent penetration of Malaysian TV homes in its third quarter result announcement ended Oct 31, 2006. However, this is lower than the 91,200 customers added in Q2 due to the higher than normal take-up attributable the FIFA World Cup and Akademi Fantasia 4. Astro has enhanced their content capabilities in Bahasa in Malaysia and Indonesia, Chinese in Hongkong and China, as well as in India, through joint-ventures with niche operators and now has have some 25 channels of aggregated and original content of various genres. Source: Bernama Malaysia, Also published in The Star Malaysia, 8th December 2006

* Majority of subscribers in China watch mobile TV for less than half an hour at any one time, with 38 per cent claiming their typical viewing session is more than 20 minutes. More than half of the respondents in a study by GfK Technology said they signed up to mobile TV in order to "have something to do during downtime". 18 per cent said the reason for acquiring mobile TV was "to watch a programme when away from my main TV" and 10 per cent said it was so they could "catch a particular programme". The study found that news and weather, sports and music videos were the most popular forms of mobile TV attracting 65%, 56 per cent and 46 per cent of users respectively. Source: Advanced Television, 11th December 2006

* ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has retained exclusive pan-Asian broadcasting rights to the FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2006 presented by Toyota, which starts on Sunday. Zurich-based iSe (International Sports and Entertainment), the distributor of the event, said the agreement covers 22 countries in South Asia, South East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. ESS also showed the tournament last year. Source: Sports Media, 8th December 2006

* The French Athletics Federation (FFA) has received four replies to a request for expressions of interest in a new French athletics series - from Canal+, Eurosport, mobile operator Orange and the Lagardère group, reported L’Equipe. However, none have indicated a willingness to pay a rights fee or even to cover the cost of production, which the newspaper estimated at €50,000 per event. Public broadcaster France Télévisions said “The days and the times are more suitable for thematic channels than for free-to-air broadcasters.” Source: Sports Media, 8th December 2006

* The cream of the world’s gaming talent will meet in Amsterdam on Sunday to battle it out in the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2006. Since October, 5,547 players from all over the world have been testing their skills in close to 30,000 qualifying matches in 63 off and online competitions on all continents for their chance to secure a spot among the best 128 virtual football players. The winner will be rewarded with a trophy, a US$20,000 prize and will receive an invite to the FIFA World Player Gala at the Zurich Opera House on December 18. Source: Football Insider, 8th December 2006

* The Indian television market has been steadily eating into the advertising revenue and has sliced off a significant chunk from traditional advertisement giant, newspapers and this is likely to grow says a Credit Suisse report. The report says that the advertisement market share of TV rose to 43 per cent over the last five years, while newspapers slumped to 49 per cent. Star TV is the leading broadcaster, with the largest cable network distribution, with a footprint of 44 million households. But it gets paid for only 10 million households due to under-declaration by cable operators. However, this is still double the amount that other broadcasters get paid for. Source: Indian Television, 8th December 2006

* Spyker F1 team principal Colin Kolles has added further intrigue to speculation of a possible return to formula one for twice world champion Mika Hakkinen. The 38-year-old Finn, who retired in 2001, tested for McLaren in Barcelona last week amid rumours of Toro Rosso co-owner Gerhard Berger's interest in his services for the 2007 season. Source: Paddock Talk, 8th December 2006

* FIFA has confirmed the schedule for the 2010 Soccer World Cup finals in South Africa which will run from June 11 to July 11. FIFA president Sepp Blatter said he was confident that South Africa would be ready to stage the World Cup but added that "they should bring a little bit of fire to the preparations." Besides that, there will be places for 13 European countries, 5 Asian and Oceania teams, and a total of 8 for South America and Central American region. The bidding process for the 2014 World Cup also officially opened after the meeting. Source: All Headline News, Bua News S.Africa, Raw Story, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, Ohmy News Korea, 6th December 2006


MORE NEWS

Don King: Promotes Toney-Peter Rematch

It was a Don King production. King gave a two-hour seminar on American history, the Seminole Indians and the merits of Nigerian Samuel Peter's rematch with James Toney on Tuesday. Only then did he get around to Peter vs. Toney II, billed as the "Seminole Showdown" and "Redemption," the WBC heavyweight eliminator fight on Jan. 6 in Hollywood, Florida.

Peter fought Toney in Los Angeles on Sept. 2, winning a 12-round split decision by scores of 116-111 on the cards of two judges. Another judge had it 115-112 for Toney. Three weeks after the fight, the WBC board of governors voted for an immediate rematch. The winner will become the mandatory challenger to the winner of the bout between Oleg Maskaev and Peter Okhello.

Toney (69-5 with three draws and 43 KOs) was clearly serious about the rematch when he began a fitness program with Billy Banks, the creator of Tae Bo. Peter, at 1.85 meters (6-foot-1), has a 10-centimeter (4-inch) heighth advantage on Toney. His lone defeat was a 12-round decision to Wladimir Klitschko in September 2005. Toney lost for the first time since 1997 when he was a cruiserweight at 81 kilos (179 pounds). This will be Toney’s seventh bout at heavyweight. On the undercard, Jose Antonio Rivera (38-4-1, 24 KOs) will defend his WBA super welterweight title against Travis Simms (24-0, 18 KOs). Source: International Herald Tribune, WWMT.com, Sun Sentinel, 5th December 2006

China/New Media: IPTV users 1 million next year

The market for IPTV is expected to take off in China next year as fixed line operators seek ways to grow. "IPTV could get a head-start next year in China," said Huang Dabin, vice-president of the network division of China's telecoms equipment maker ZTE Corp. China had 370 million fixed-line telephone subscribers and 449 million mobile phone subscribers as of October.

In an interview with China Daily, Huang predicted the number of IPTV subscribers in China could exceed 1 million next year, up from the current 100,000 subscribers. Fixed-line operators China Telecom and China Netcom have been aggressively building trial IPTV networks since last year. This year, some commercial IPTV services have been operational in cities such as Shanghai. Source: Advanced Television, Indian Television, 8th December 2006

China/Business: Restriction on Foreign Stake in TV, Film Production Companies

China has adopted a policy in disallowing the creation of new joint venture companies dealing with television and film production. The decision sets aside rules issued in 2004 that allowed foreigners to take minority stakes in local production companies.The country is suggesting international media companies to work instead through individual projects with local partners.

Such a move would be a blow to foreign media companies that are eager to tap a Chinese market with 400 million increasingly affluent TV viewers and booming video sales. Beijing has tightened curbs on foreign media involvement over the past two years, both to protect Chinese companies from competition and to maintain the communist government's control over what the public sees and hears. Regulators also have restricted use of foreign programming on Chinese television. Source: Indian Television, 9th December 2006

Elsewhere/Rights: Ten Sees No Pay-TV Deal For AFL

The chief of Network Ten told the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday that it was "highly unlikely" that Australian Football League (AFL) rights would be shared with pay-TV company Foxtel, and indeed described the AFL as a key weapon in the battle against pay-TV. Ten executive chairman Nick Falloon said the lack of a pay-TV deal to ease the rights fee burden would have a "reasonably significant cost impact" for his network.

Early this year Ten together with Seven Network agreed to pay a combined A$780 million (US$616 million) for AFL for five years, the biggest deal ever in Australian sports TV. They agreed that all matches each week would be shown and without a pay-TV deal in place, the networks would need to show the matches themselves. The past season was the last one of Ten sharing AFL rights with Nine and Fox Footy Channel. Ten’s coverage of the 2006 AFL Grand Final was the most-watched programme of this year. Ten has already said that it plans to offer AFL games in high-definition next year. Source: Sports Media, 8th December 2006

Elsewhere/Rights: A1GP Adds Breakthrough Deals

The A1GP series in only its second season has broken into the hard-to-crack American market in style in a deal with Fox-owned motorsport channel Speed. The exclusive agreement adds over 68 million homes in the USA to the A1GP universe, plus five million in Canada. Speed will show tape-delayed weekday coverage of the 12-race 2006-07 season, already in progress.

In China, A1GP is on CCTV nationally, plus the regional channels of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. RTM in Malaysia and Global TV in Indonesia carry coverage. ESPN Star Sports shows A1GP pan-regionally in Asia. Al Jazeera shows it pan-regionally in the Middle East and North Africa. Fox Sports carries it in Australia and TV3 in New Zealand. Fox Latin America shows A1GP in Central America, Brazil and Mexico. Mexican national network Televisa also carries the series. SABC shows it in South Africa and on its pan-African service.

A1GP is also being carried live in France (Eurosport France) Germany-Austria-Switzerland (Premiere), Italy (Sky), Spain (Sogecable), the Netherlands (RTL 7), Greece (Supersport), Ireland (RTE), Ukraine (Poverkhnost TV), and Poland (Polsat) and there are also deals in Bosnia, Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Highlights air on ERT in Greece and RTR in Russia. A1GP has a deal for broadband delivery in place with Mediazone, with live streaming available in many territories (including Japan). Source: Sports Media, 8th December 2006

Elsewhere/General: FIFA Unveils New World Cup System

FIFA's executive committee has revealed a new three-phase qualification system for Oceania teams ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Previously, the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) qualifier had been required to play-off against the fifth-placed team in CONMEBOL (South America). Under the new ruling, the winner of the OFC will play against a team from AFC (Asia). The first phase will begin at the 2007 South Pacific Games in Samoa, with the tournament doubling as a preliminary World Cup qualifying competition. The gold, silver and bronze medalists will then advance to the second phase, where they will join New Zealand in a home-and-away round-robin tournament.

The winner of this group will be crowned OFC Nations Cup champion and secure qualification for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa, after which it will move on to a final phase in a group format with teams from the AFC. Meanwhile, the dates for the final competition of the 2010 tournament have also been released. They have been set for June 11 to July 11, 2010 and preliminary draw for the competition will be held in Durban on 23 November 2007. Source: Football Insider, 8th December 2006

Elsewhere/General: South America to Keep World Cup Qualifying Format

FIFA have decided to allow South America to keep its controversial World Cup qualifying tournament in which the 10 teams take part in a single group and play each other twice, according to the South American Football Confederation (CSF) on its Web site following FIFA’s executive committee meeting on Wednesday. The South American qualifiers will get under way in September and October of 2007.

The region has used the system for the last three World Cup qualifying competitions despite protests from European clubs, who are forced to release their players for the games. The clubs complain that the players are worn out by the constant transatlantic travel. Two years ago, FIFA had said that the federation would no longer accept the system. Since then, there has been intense lobbying by South American officials for the system to be retained.

The CSF said the dates would follow the international calendar and would be in pairs so that players would effectively have to make only nine transatlantic journeys over a period of two years. The South Americans have argued that they effectively play fewer competitive internationals than in Europe as there is no qualifying competition for the Copa America.

The top four teams would qualify directly for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa while the fifth will play off for another place with the fourth-placed team from the CONCACAF region. This is a change from the previous two World Cups when the fifth team played off with the winners of the Oceania region. Uruguay met Australia on both occasions with Uruguay qualifying for the 2002 World Cup and Australia coming out on top in 2006. Source: Guardian Unlimited, 7th December 2006