Friday, 15th July 2011

RIGHTS FEES

=>  VTV, Vietnam’s state broadcaster, has acquired rights to show the second leg of a 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying match between Vietnam and Qatar, playing at Hanoi’s My Dinh stadium on July 28. VTV is reported to have paid US$5,000 to acquire rights from Audio Vision Global, the cable operator. The deal comes after VTV missed out on the rights for the first leg when it refused to pay the price being asked by MP & Silva, the Singapore-based sports agency which was marketing the rights.


BROADCAST & RIGHTS DISTRIBUTION

=>  Deutsche Telekom will get football fans interactively involved with Bundesliga pay-TV service "LIGA total!" in the coming season. Through IPTV platform Entertain or via mobile phone viewers can interact with each other during live match coverage and take part in other activities. Telekom could also offer sports betting or online games down the line. After HSV and Borussia Dortmund, Telekom also wants to launch TV channels for fans of other big Bundesliga football clubs. "LIGA total!" is currently has 250,000 subscribers via Entertain and mobile phone.


EVENTS

=>  The men’s and women’s singles champions at the US Open Tennis Championship will this year receive a record $1.8 mil each, a 6.4% increase on last year. Total prize purse for the competition, which is scheduled for Aug 29 to Sep 11 in New York, is $23.7 million, the US Tennis Association said. The US Open will be offering equal prize money to the men’s and women’s singles champions for the 39th successive year.


BIZ & BITES

=>  Manchester Utd is the most valuable sports franchise in the world, according to Forbes' annual world's top 50, valued at $1.86 bil, ahead of NFL's Dallas Cowboys ($1.81 bil) and MLB's New York Yankees ($1.7 bil). Forbes noted that the Yankees are worth 86% more than baseball’s second most valuable team, the Boston Red Sox, ranked 31st. NFL's Washington Redskins ($1.55 bil) and Real Madrid ($1.45 bil) round out the top five. Forbes said TV ratings for NFL games are at "an all-time high," with the league's TV revenue up 700% over the past 25 years. The Jacksonville Jaguars, in 45th place, are the least valuable NFL franchise at $725 mil, but are still worth more than any NBA or NHL side as well as all but five of the 30 MLB franchises. The New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers, each ranked 47th and 48th, were the only two NBA franchises to make top 50, which featured no NHL teams. Like the NBA, Formula 1 was represented by just two teams in the top 50; Ferrari and McLaren.

=>  Leo Kirch, who turned his one-man film distribution into Germany’s second-biggest media business before losing control of it after a gamble on pa-TV, has died. He was 84. No cause of death was given but Kirch had suffered from diabetes and near-blindness for several years. Kirch Holding GmbH was once valued at $5 bil. It held Germany’s biggest film-licensing library, the nation’s only pay-TV channel and rights to 2 FIFA World Cups. When Kirch resigned, his companies were under court protection from creditors, the biggest bankruptcy filing in Germany since World War II.