Wednesday, 26th September 2007

HEADLINE NEWS

TSA Distributes More Badminton from Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Badminton Association (HKBA) appointed Total Sports Asia (TSA) as exclusive worldwide media rights distributor for the Yonex-Sunrise Hong Kong Open Badminton Super Series 2007. TSA will distribute all television, broadband and mobile platform worldwide rights excluding the territory of Hong Kong.

Mr. Chau Yat Kwong, Hon. Secretary of the Hong Kong Badminton Association said: “We are glad to appoint TSA to exclusively distribute the rights to the Yonex-Sunrise Hong Kong Open because of TSA’s established networks in the market and the sterling work that they have done to elevate the sport of badminton to greater heights.

Julian Jackson, Senior Vice President of Media in Total Sports Asia said: “This appointment means a lot to TSA because we have been entrusted to bring this top-notch badminton event to fans all over the world. Badminton viewership has shown strong growth over the years and we are confident that we will help the HKBA bring the Yonex-Sunrise Hong Kong Open to more viewers around the world than ever before.”

Previously known simply as the Hong Kong Open, this year marks a significance for the HKBA because the event is upgraded to Super Series tournament. The prestigious Super Series attracts a clutch of top international badminton stars like Indonesia’s Taufik Hidayat, Danish great Peter Gade and Malaysia’s star ace Lee Chong Wei, who will compete for top honours.

The Super Series is a calendar of badminton tournaments sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) and each tournament offers a minimum of US$200,000 in prize money, making it a major draw for top badminton players. Source: Sport Business, Sports e-Media, 25th Sep 2007


SPORTS SHORTS

* ESPN Star Sports, which gambled an astonishing $1.1-billion to win the ICC rights for the next eight years, has earned Rs200 crore from the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup championship alone. Media buyers say ESS received close to Rs110-115 crore through ad sales alone, which went through the roof for the finals with India playing Pakistan. Of the Rs115-odd crore, Rs 40 crore has been contributed by sponsors, with the rest coming from stand-alone spot sales. ESS sold spots for the India-Pakistan final Twenty20 match at an all-time high of Rs7.5-10 lakh per 10 seconds, the highest rates in the history of Indian TV, with TRPs expected in the range of an astronomical 15-20. Source: Economic Times, 25th Sep 2007

* Neo Sports has sold 65% of advertising inventory for the upcoming India-Australia cricket series, starting September 29, buoyed by India’s success in the Twenty20 World Cup. Earlier this week, Neo Sports officials said they have reached an agreement with InCable Net to carry Neo Sports and Neo Sports Plus. InCable Net reaches 4 million viewers across India and adds to the 1 million homes that Neo Sports is now able to reach through Tata Sky. Recently, Neo Sports and Neo Sports Plus signed on cable operators in south India, pushing its reach to about 45% of households in the south. Neo Sports has the telecast rights of all international cricket played in India until 2010. Source: Sport Business, Indian Television, Economic Times, 25th Sep 2007

* Neo Sports has announced an agreement with StarHub in Singapore. The agreement ensures live telecast and availability of Neo Sports in Singapore, starting 26 September. With this deal, Neo Sports has spread its footprints deeper across Asia as this announcement comes close on the heels of its recently announced deals with the Middle East Countries and several South East Asian countries like Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Viewers in Singapore will get access to the international and domestic cricket played in India. StarHub will offer Neo Sports on its digital platform, as part of its newly designed Cricket Group comprising Neo Sports and the Cricket Channel. Source: Indian Television, 25th Sep 2007

* Havas Media will open a new sports marketing office in Malaysia with Kuhan Foo, previously head of operations at Total Sports Asia, as its general manager. Foo previously worked on AirAsia’s sponsorship of Manchester United, the partnership which saw Havas Sports appointed to manage the activation work for the deal. In the last 18 months, Havas Media has opened offices in Singapore, Australia, India, China and Hong Kong. Havas Sports is represented in India and China. Source: Sport Business, ADOI!, 25th Sep 2007

* Basketball’s CBA-Euroleague Challenge have secured television deals with Eurosport 2 which will show three of the games between Team China, Sydney Kings, CSKA Moscow and Benetton Basket Tamoil on September 30 and October 1. Meanwhile, CCTV5, the sports channel of state broadcaster China Central Television, will broadcast all Team China games live to an audience of more than 100 million viewers. The CBA-Euroleague Challenge is being promoted by the Chinese Basketball Association, Infront Sports and Media, the Switzerland-based international sports agency which markets basketball in China, and Euroleague Basketball, the top European club competition. Source: Sportcal, 25th Sep 2007

* FIFA have had to pay out more than £50million in severance money to sponsors and staff, such has been the chronic mismanagement within world football's governing body. In addition to the £45m to Mastercard following the fiasco of FIFA's World Cup sponsorship negotiations, it has now emerged that general secretary Urs Linsi received a £4m pay-off when he left Zurich last June having just agreed a new eight-year deal worth an annual £500,000 with his own employee, the head of human resources, two months earlier. Linsi's deputy Michael Schallhart and the human resources boss Jurg Imfeld, who departed with the general secretary, also received £500,000 each, with FIFA haemorrhaging money. Source: Daily Mail, 24th Sep 2007

* European interest in watching mobile television is tiny, a new study shows. Mobile operators hope that mobile TV could encourage users to spend an extra €5-10 a month, compensating for declining revenues from voice calls, but mobile television and video downloads ranked close to the bottom of consumer interest in a Gartner study in Europe. Only about 5% of Europeans expressed interest in watching television or video on their cellphones in the next 12 months, the study said. At the same time some 20% of Asians said they would watch TV on their phone screens. Source: Advanced Television, 25th Sep 2007


MORE NEWS

Elsewhere/Premiere Plans 'Less Provocative' Bundesliga Bidding Strategy

Premiere, the German cable and satellite broadcaster, is to adopt a ‘less provocative’ bidding strategy for the rights to German soccer’s top-tier Bundesliga in 2009-10. Premiere is seeking to acquire the Bundesliga rights when the German Football League (DFL) issues a tender towards the end of the year, and is to adopt a different approach in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the last auction, when it lost out to cable consortium Unity Media.

Carsten Schmidt, a member of the board responsible for sports and new business at Premiere, told Dow Jones Newswires, that ‘in contrast to last time, we will not bid provocatively any more.’ In December 2005, Premiere was outflanked by Unity Media in the bidding for the rights from 2006 to 2009 after insisting that the Bundesliga’s free-to-air highlights be delayed to offer more exclusivity to pay-television. Premiere later recouped the rights for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons after agreeing a €100-million ($140.9-million) a year sublicensing deal with Arena, Unity Media’s pay-television channel.

Despite saying that it is willing to adopt a more flexible bidding strategy, Premiere still wants highlights to be shown later on German free-to-air television. Sportschau, the highlights programme on ARD, the German public-service broadcaster, currently airs at 6.30pm on Saturdays, just over an hour after the afternoon matches conclude. Source: Sportcal, 25th Sep 2007