Friday, 21st January 2011

RIGHTS FEE & DISTRIBUTION


=>  IEC in Sports has been reappointed as exclusive worldwide representatives for broadcast media rights of the ATP Gerry Weber Open (ATP World Tour 250), until 2014. Played in June, the grass court event in Halle, Germany is used by many of the top players as a warm-up to Wimbledon. The event, which has prize money of €750,000 ($1mil), has been part of IEC's tennis portfolio for more than 10 years. Last year, IEC secured contracts to sell the worldwide broadcast rights to 250 series tournaments in Brazil, Stuttgart and Vienna. However, it lost the rights to two 250 series events in Croatia and Chile to MP & Silva.

Champions League Rights - Spain

=>  Team Marketing could struggle to increase free-to-air rights fees in Spain for the Champions League from 2012/13 to 2014/15 because of a new broadcasting law governing state television. The law effectively prohibits state television from using taxpayer money to ‘outbid’ commercial broadcasters for television rights of ‘great commercial value. Pubcaster, TVE, presently holds rights to the Tuesday night Champions League first-choice rights, paying €30 million ($40.5 million) per season, while consortium of regionals, Forta, holds first-pick rights on Wednesday nights for €35 million per year.

=>  Meanwhile, TVE is expected to report a budget deficit of €66 million for 2010 – close to the amount it spends on its top sports rights contracts, including the Champions League (€30mil) and MotoGP (€20mil). Forta cost the taxpayer €1.86bil in 2010, and its debts for the year total €1.48bil.

=>  Commercial broadcasters, La Sexta and Cuatro, both part of the Prisa media group, are both understood to be preparing bids for the Spanish free-to-air rights of the Champions League. La Sexta is not expected to move into profit until next year, and it already holds right for the weekly free-to-air Spanish Liga match, for which it pays over €150mil per season. The channel had aggressively pursued sports rights in the past, snatching F1 away from Telecinco €40mil per year bid.

=>  Two-way pay-television auction Mediapro confirmed that it would seek to renew its existing deal for the Champions League pay-TV rights which it is thought to pay close to €50mil per season. The matches are aired on its pay channel, Gol TV, which has over 1.5mil subscribers, only 18 months after launching in August 2009. Prisa TV is also expected to bid for the pay-television rights package. In addition to free-to-air channel Cuatro, Prisa TV also operates a series of premium channels showing sport, including Canal Plus and soccer channel Canal Plus Liga.


NEW MEDIA

=>  ESPNcricinfo.com has been revamped ahead of the Cricket World Cup in February after the cricket-dedicated website enjoyed record growth. ESPNcricinfo.com will offer ball-by-ball updates, scores and text commentary as well as recaps and player profiles from every match. The Ashes series between England and Australia and the recent Test series between South Africa and India - the top two-ranked Test sides globally - ESPNcricinfo.com collectively broke the 20m unique user barrier in December. The site is also launching a mobile application for the World Cup.

=>  Eurosport has sealed a deal to provide 3D sports video content for Nintendo’s new 3DS gaming console. The two-year, pan-European partnership represents the latest move by Eurosport into 3D, with the broadcaster having been one of the most prominent supporters of 3D development over the past 18 months. As part of the agreement, Eurosport will also extensively promote Nintendo 3DS across Europe on its multimedia communication platforms through TV, Internet and mobile broadcasts.


EVENTS

=>  The Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) and Infront Sports & Media will once again commit to strengthening the unique profile of FIM Superbike World Championship (SBK). The Championship is broadcast in 175 countries and in 2010, TV audiences increased 33% compared to the previous year. With over 3,000 broadcast hours, it reached a cumulative audience of 498mil viewers. Following a website re-launch in 2009 and a comprehensive new media strategy, online interaction with fans has also risen. As a result of these developments, sponsors benefit from a much enhanced visibility and brand exposure - even beyond the actual races.


DATA

=>  Research from Companiesandmarkets.com is predicting steady growth for 3D over the next 4 years. In its 3D TV Market & Future Forecast Worldwide (2010-14) report, the analyst expects the 3D TV market to be worth more than $100bil at the end of 2014, driven by worldwide 3D TV unit sales growing at a CAGR of 79.12%. Key drivers of worldwide 3D TV market include multiple initiatives taken by governments, 3D content broadcasters and 3D TV manufacturers.

=>  Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) prediction expects 40mil new pay-TV viewers to tune in for the first time over 2011 and that more than 140bil more hours of content will be watched globally. Enhanced viewing will drive a 20% increase in pay-TV revenues with a commensurate $10bil rise in global ad revenue to $191bil. This is the fifth consecutive year of growth, from $174 billion in 2007 to $191 billion in 2011, contrasting sharply with newspapers’ decline in ad revenue from $126bil to $93bil over the same period. The forecast of 6% increase in 2012 would take TV ad revenue beyond the $200bil mark: more than twice as much as for newspapers.


OTHER NEWS

=>  Equipment company, Apacs, has announced a 2-year sponsorship extension with Malaysian shuttlers, Gan Teik Chai and Tan Bin Shen. The initial sponsorship deal signed with Apacs came after the two athletes withdrew as elite shuttlers of the Malaysian national team in the 2008 set-up of the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM). 2009 saw the duo crowned champions of the Australian Open Grand Prix and runners up of the Yonex Sunrise Malaysian Open Grand Prix Gold. Teik Chai and Bin Shen currently play for Malaysian badminton club KLRC.

=>  The US Federal Communications Commission has approved the planned merger of Comcast Corporation and NBCUniversal. Disney will not be pleased with the FCC's decision since its own ESPN channel will again get more real competition, not seen since CNN Sports Illustrated folded in May 2002. FOX Sports does program local regional cable sports networks but really has never been an outright competitor to ESPN. Comcast owns sport channel, Versus, the Golf Channel, some Major League Baseball and a raft of regional sports networks around the USA. NBC has the National Football League, the National Hockey League, Notre Dame Football, and the 2012 Olympics.

=>  CBS Sports and Turner Sports unveiled the talent roster for their joint coverage of the NCAA Division I, which tips off in March. Turner’s truTV will carry the first four games of the tourney. In accordance with the terms of the $10.8 billion deal hashed out in April 2010, CBS and Turner will share the rights to televise March Madness through 2025. All opening-round through Sweet 16 games will be shown in their entirety on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV, marking the first time fans will be able to watch every game on their tourney brackets. Games carried by CBS and the three cable networks will feature uniform logos, titles and musical treatments, which should go a long way toward ensuring a consistent, seamless presentation.

=>  Legendary Dutch midfielder, Ruud Gullit, has been made manager of a team in the Russian republic of Chechnya and has left football experts and Caucasus watchers stunned. Analysts found it hard to understand why Gullit, would move to Russian Premier League club Terek Grozny, which finished 12th in Russia's 16-team top division last season. His boss there will be Ramzan Kadyrov, the former rebel fighter, now the Kremlin-backed president of Chechnya. Gullit declined to comment when contacted by CNN, but interviews with two Moscow sports newspapers published him admitting knowing little about Terek Grozny. Gullit said he did not expect to spend much time in the city.