Friday, 7th January 2011

RIGHTS FEE

=> ESPN, Fox and the other main contenders for U.S. television rights have shown interest in buying a package covering four Olympics. The committee was now weighing the possibility of widening high-stakes bidding to include the 2018 Winter and 2020 Summer Games. The host cities for those games have not been selected. The likely contenders — NBC, ESPN and Fox, along with a potential bid from CBS and Turner — have approached the IOC about the four-games option. Adding two more Olympics to the package could bring the total rights fee to more than $4 billion. Multi-games deals have been made before. In 1995, NBC obtained the rights to five Olympics from 2000 to 2008 in a pair of deals worth $3.5 billion.

=> German public broadcaster, ARD, has warned that price for rights to Sochi 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games could mean giving up some or all of its Olympic coverage. Incumbent rights-holders, ARD and fellow public broadcaster ZDF, have broken off negotiations for now as the International Olympic Committee is seeking €180 million ($236.8 million) for 2014 and 2016. In 2009, Sky Deutschland, German pay-tv broadcaster, reportedly offered €100 million for the rights to 2014 and 2016 Games while ARD and ZDF were thought to have submitted a lower bid. The IOC is marketing the 2014 and 2016 rights itself to broadcasters in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the UK, while it signed a €250-million deal with Sportfive for the remaining European territories. ARD and ZDF hold the rights to the 2012 Olympics in London as part of the last EBU deal.

=> The LNR, French rugby union’s top two divisions, launched a tender for its domestic broadcast rights from 2011-12 onwards. Sports marketing agencies as well as broadcasters are invited to take part in the process. At present, €29.5 million ($39.1 million) a season is generated for the Top 14 and Pro D2 leagues in rights deals that run until the end of the 2010-11 season, with pay-tv Canal Plus paying the lion’s share and the remainder from deals with Orange (telecom), , France Télévisions (public broadcaster) and Eurosport (cable and satellite).

=> Public broadcaster, France Télévisions, and cable operator, Eurosport, have bid together for rights to France’s top-tier handball league. Incumbent, Eurosport, and France Télévisions submitted the sole bid for rights from 2011-12 onwards. The LNH, the top-tier handball league, is seeking to sell the rights for either three or four years from next season onwards. It is reported that the France Télévisions-Eurosport offer is less than the fee of just under €2 million ($2.6 million) a year paid by Orange and Eurosport for the rights from 2008-09 to 2010-11. The LNH worked with Amaury Sport Organisation to negotiate the new broadcast rights contract.

=> German pay-TV Sky Deutschland claims that it has scrapped a recently-signed rights deal for Italian soccer’s Serie A because of demands made by MP & Silva. Subscription based internet portal, Sportdigital.tv, announced a Serie A rights partnership with Sky Deutschland recently, claiming a deal with MP & Silva to show at least two live Serie A games per match week and allowing Sky to broadcast one of its two games per match week in an ‘open window’ promotion for its Sky Sport subscribers. It is understood, though, that the full agreement between MP & Silva and Sportdigital has still not been signed, but that the agency allowed Sportdigital to begin showing matches as the final details were ironed out.

=> ESPN and the NFL “have agreed to broad terms on a new media rights deal that will be worth nearly $2 billion per year.” According a report, the deal currently does not include the NFL playoffs or Super Bowl. Just days ago, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent an e-mail to NFL fans on how hard the league is working to avoid a 2011 NFL lockout. Now, they’re looking at a $2 billion TV deal which doesn’t include the Super Bowl, a multi-million grossing event by itself. ESPN annual payout of $1.1 billion dwarfs fees paid by Fox ($720 million), CBS ($620 million) and NBC ($603 million). DirecTV pays about $1 billion a year for exclusive access to Sunday Ticket.

=> The Scottish Premier League has claimed that controversial proposed changes to the format of the division will generate increased revenues from television broadcast deals. Doncaster is pushing for a top flight of just 10 teams - there are 12 teams at present in the league - with a second tier of the same size and a system of play-offs. UK rights to show live SPL matches are shared by pay-TV BSkyB and US cable, ESPN. The deal, which began last season, runs until the end of the 2013-14 season and is worth £65 million ($100.6 million).


EVENT

=> The Indian Premier League, along with the BCCI, has decided to go ahead with a 10-team tournament featuring 74 games. The fourth edition of the IPL will have 70 league matches + 4 play-off matches with each team having the same number of matches (14 of which 7 home and 7 away) as in the previous IPL editions. There will be 1 league table with teams divided into 2 groups of 5 teams each. The IPL players auction with as many as 350 players to go under the hammer will take place in Bangalore on 8 and 9 January. With the number of games going up though marginally, the franchises can now look forward to higher revenues from broadcast, central & team sponsorships and ticketing.

=> Australia was awarded the right to host the 2015 Asian Cup. Football Federation Australia was the only candidate in the bid to host the quadrennial event. The FFA said that Melbourne will stage the tournament's opening match in January 2015, with Sydney hosting the final. Other stadiums will be selected from Canberra, Gold Coast and Brisbane.

=> English rugby union clubs Wasps and Harlequins have confirmed they will stage their coming LV= Cup fixture in Abu Dhabi. The London rivals will be the first English clubs to stage a competitive match outside of the UK. The match will be broadcast live on Sky Sports in the UK and Wasps has announced plans to appease season-ticket holders who now cannot attend the game by staging an open day with players later in the year. Wasps owner Steve Hayes and Dallaglio came up with the idea after visiting the region last year as part of their research into stadium development.


BROADCAST

=> The AFC Asian Cup 2011 kicks off in Qatar with a global TV audience of up to a billion viewers expected to watch 16 footballing nations compete, last won by Iraq in a memorable final against Saudi Arabia four years ago. ESPN Star Sports holds the broadcast rights to 24 countries in Asia, broadcasting 32 matches on ESPN and Star Sports networks, including ESPN HD and online and on demand via ESPN Player. Al Jazeera Sports will show it in the Middle East. The 16 nations will join Qatar for the tournament, culminating with the final on 29 January in Doha. In 2007, the tournament attracted a global TV audience of 700 million, and the Asian Football Confederation expects record viewership figures exceeding in 2011.


OTHER BUSINESS NEWS

=> Sponsorship and merchandising company, Premier Brands, that had promised Rs75 million over three years for badminton, has has completely dissociated itself from Badminton Association of India, citing gross abuse of funds that the company had given as the first installment for the first year. Despite the money given to BAI, the federation reportedly did not have money to purchase tickets for the players to travel abroad and had to seek help from others. Premier Brands cited the clause in the agreement with BAI which said that if the implementation did not take place within 45 days, the company had option to move out of any further deal, and that is what they have done, the official said.

=> Also, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation is raiding the office of the Internatiional Sports Division of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, with a fresh complaint filed naming Organising Committee sec-gen, Lalit Bhanot, and director general, VK Verma who face arrest in a day or two. The CBI has found documents that led them to file the complaint and raids were conducted in as many as 10 premises in and around the Capital. Verma, whose name also figured in the third FIR filed by the CBI in connection with the Rs 107 crore Swiss Time Keeping deal along with that of CWG Secretary General Lalit Bhanot, has been named an accused in the scam case.

=> IMG Consulting has signed a deal to handle international media and sponsorship rights for North America’s National Lacrosse League. The league comprises 10 teams, seven from USA and three from Canada, and has averaged over 10,000 fans per game over the past five years.

=> AFC President, Mohamed Bin Hammam has dropped a hint that he could challenge Sepp Blatter for the presidency of FIFA after all. Blatter will seek a new term as FIFA president in June, but back in August, Bin Hammam had said that he would be backing Blatter to remain in office for a new mandate. However, on Wednesday he refused to rule out challenging Blatter and criticised the FIFA chief’s announcement of plans for the introduction of an anti-corruption committee through the media without first running the proposal by executive committee members.

=> Meanwhile, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has told a new football task force to investigate whether there should be a change to the system of scoring three points for a win and one for a draw. The modern points format was first introduced into the English Football League back in 1981, with every other major league adopting the format by the mid-1990s. However, the Task Force Football 2014 has been set up to look at the laws of the game and come up with ways to make it more attractive, with the aim of introducing changes at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.