Thursday, 20th January 2011

RIGHTS FEE


=>  The University of Texas and sports programming giant ESPN have struck a deal that will create a 24-hour TV network. The network will include more than just sports. ESPN will pay the university $300 million over the next 20 years in exchange for the rights to provide programming for the cable network. In addition to sports, the network will air some academic and cultural programming - like musical performances - that originate on the UT campus.


BROADCAST

=>  GlobeCast has signed a series of deals for broadcast distribution in 2011, the largest of which is with Total Sports Asia (TSA), rightsholder of the BWF Super Series and ITTF Pro-Tour Table Tennis. GlobeCast has been appointed as official satellite service provider for these events and will provide satellite and fiber delivery from the first 4 events for Total Sports Asia: the ITTF Slovenia Open and England Open and two Superseries events in Kuala Lumpur and Seoul in January. GlobeCast is also involved in the AFC Asian Cup Finals from 7-29 January in Doha, Qatar.

=>  State-owned, China Radio International (CRI), has launched a new media broadcasting network – China International Broadcasting Network (CIBN) will be based on CRI Online, the multilingual website run by CRI, and will be a convergence of a website, online broadcaster, network television and mobile service terminal. Featuring 61 languages, it will cater to audiences all over the world. CRI has also launched the Global Broadcasting Media Group (GMG), which will function as the investing and operating platform for CIBN.

=>  San Jose-base research firm, MRG, confirmed that IPTV continues to flourish with subscriber and revenue numbers exceeding expectation for the third year: predictions of global IPTV subs to further grow from 44m at the end of 2010 to 111.5m in 2014. Service revenue forecast for global IPTV market in 2010 is $17.8b and is forecasted to grow by an impressive CAGR of 28% to $47.9b by 2014. Europe and North America are cited as likely to generate a larger share of the global revenue, due to very low ARPUs in Asia.


EVENT

=>  With the first club in India to host the International Invitation Snooker Tournament 2011, the Cricket Club of India (CCI) plans to revive and get recognition for snooker as a professional sport of India. Prize purse is sponsored by CCI, in partnership with Ballantine and is worth Rs.500,000. Twenty-four players will be competing in the tournament with legends such as Jimmy White, Stephen Lee, Alfie Burden, Reanne Evans, Geet Sethi, Yasin Merchant, Aditya Mehta amongst others.

=>  The European Senior Tour will visit China for the first time this year, after the ISPS Handa Senior World Championship was added to the 2011 schedule. The new event, co sanctioned by the European Senior Tour and the Chinese Golf Association, will be played on the World Cup Course, Mission Hills, Shenzhen between March 11 and 13 and have a prize fund of $350,000. The tournament's title sponsor is the International Sports Promotion Society, which encourages golf among disability groups.

=>  Bankers, HSBC, expanded its partnership with the Asian Rugby Football Union by signing a 3-year deal to sponsor the Asian Sevens Series, the region's top sevens tournament. The bank has also renewed its sponsorship of the HSBC Asian Five Nations, Asia's premier 15-a-side rugby competition, until 2013. The HSBC Asian Sevens Series consists of 4 events, including 2 ranking tournaments, in Shanghai and Borneo. Rankings are used to determine invitations to tournaments in the HSBC Sevens World Series and potentially, multi-sport events such as the Asian Games and Olympic Games. Rugby sevens has been added to the programme for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

=>  5 nations are in the running to host the Handball World Championships in 2015, after South Korea withdrew its bid. The Korea Handball Federation did not give a reason for the late withdrawal, which leaves France, Poland, Qatar, Norway and Denmark as potential hosts. The International Handball Federation said the five candidates will present their bids for both tournaments in a meeting in Malmo, Sweden on Jan 27, with the winner chosen by the council soon after. Qatar is hoping to stage the competition, traditionally a Europe-based sport, in the Middle East for the first time.

=>  CONCACAF (North, Central American and Caribbean) has called for FIFA to award the region an extra place at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Qualifying format for the WC2006 awarded CONCACAF 3 places while a fourth was promoted through a play-off against a team from Oceania and WC2010 tournament, the play-off was against a team from South America. FIFA has not yet announced the qualifying format for the 2014 tournament.


OTHER NEWS

=>  While hearing World Sports Group's appeal over dismissal of its plea by the Bombay High Court over the termination of media rights agreement by the Board of Control for Cricket India in last year, court has suggested that the two parties sort out their differences amicably. The BCCI had terminated the deal with WSG on grounds of improper conduct, alleging that the facilitation fee of Rs4.25b WSG sought from Multi-Screen Media (MSM) for relinquishing broadcast rights for the Indian sub-continent belonged to BCCI. WSG argued MSMS did not complain that fraud had been committed on them, thus nullifying BCCI’s claim.

=>  Further to the Nimbus-Sri Lanka Cricket story last Friday, it has been claimed the SLC could have earned up to $15m from the sale of the SL-India series rights in 2009 although the deal with Nimbus was closed days before the event started. The deal came about when SLC was in dispute with Ten Sports over a renewal of its long-term rights deal. Ten Sports was seeking compensation of $300 million after SLC cancelled a deal covering Sri Lanka’s home matches between 2009 and 2012 on grounds that it was agreed without proper process. However, the dispute was resolved within days of the Nimbus deal being agreed and Ten Sports and SLC signed a new four-year contract, worth around $65 million, which runs until 2013. Nimbus retains coveted rights to India’s home matches and domestic cricket in a 4-year, Rs20b deal which runs until March 2014.

=>  National Football League (NFL) commissioner Roger Goodell has called for “commitment” from warring parties as prospect of a lockout in sport’s richest league looms. NFL owners and players are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to replace the current agreement, which expires Mar 4. But with the prospect of a lockout next season looking very likely, relations between the League and the NFL Players' Association were strained further when the union filed a collusion claim against NFL owners.

=>  The Lotus naming dispute is set for a London High Court date next week. Both sides have refused to give any ground, despite Group Lotus chief Dany Bahar saying that he felt the issue could be solved without going to court and Team Lotus chief Riad Asmat retorting that they hadn’t heard anything from Group. Several issues to be resolved include Group Lotus' early termination of a 5-year naming license with Team Lotus and claims that Group Lotus has been using the original Colin Chapman-owned Team Lotus' history in its promotional material. Asmat said Team Lotus is pushing ahead with its 2011 strategy and has no plans for a further rebranding.