Monday, 2nd April 2007

HEADLINES OF THE DAY

The 'Mane' Event

The clash concluded, the dust cleared and the silvery locks of the WWE Chairman were shaved completely from his head live from his own creation, WrestleMania 23. Then, when it seemed that all hell had already been raised, Austin gave Donald Trump his receipt for the downpour of cold hard cash that fell from the ceiling of Ford Field earlier on – in the form of a Stone Cold Stunner.

Selecting Intercontinental Champion Umaga as his representative and employing his own son, Shane, as his back-up plan, Mr. McMahon seemed to have come to Detroit prepared for the Battle of the Billionaires. His master plan, however, would not take into account the resilience of ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley and the venomous bite of the Texas Rattlesnake.

The 80,000-plus capacity crowd in Detroit was drawn out of their seats as Mr. McMahon was unsuccessful in sneaking away and received a Stunner – a move he’s all too familiar with by now. The incapacitated Chairman would then be strapped into the same barber’s chair he flaunted for weeks on Raw in hopes of intimidating The Donald, and was robbed of his “McMane.”

Together, Lashley and Trump sheared Mr. McMahon of his hair while the now-bald billionaire bellowed an agonizing wail. Humiliated and head-shaved, McMahon wept at the mercy of The Donald and the ECW Superstar while Austin looked on sipping on a can of beer. The mane-less Mr. McMahon crawled and quivered toward the locker room area and suddenly, Austin proved exactly how much he despises billionaires by leveling The Donald with a billion-dollar Stunner – thus, delivering the ultimate WrestleMania moment. Source: WWE Official, 2nd April 2007

Detroit, Champ City

For the second consecutive year, John Cena walked into WrestleMania as the WWE Champion. And in a result correctly chosen by 59 percent of WWE fans polled in an AT&T Mobile poll, Cena defeated Shawn Michaels in Detroit to walk out with the gold for the second year in a row. From the moment The Champ entered Ford Field, it was obvious that his A-Game was in full effect.

In a scene reminiscent of his unforgettable gangster entrance last year in Chicago, Cena entered Ford Field by driving a Mustang down through the loading dock and crashing through the glass set. It was an impressive sight, even if it did nothing to turn the favor of the raucous capacity crowd of 80,103 that was clearly in favor of HBK.

It didn’t faze HBK any, as Michaels clearly had a game plan, focusing on Cena’s knee and dominating the early portion of the match. However, an errant charge led Michaels head-first into the steel ringpost, busting him open and giving Cena an opening to get back into the match. Unfortunately, just seconds after, Sweet Chin Music intended for The Champ instead nearly took the head off of referee Mike Chioda.

Following the bout, Cena sat in the middle of the ring and stared at the WrestleMania logo, nearly in tears after realizing what he had just done. He then dedicated the match to his father, saying “this one’s for you, dad,” before holding the WWE Championship in the air. But when he tried to shake HBK’s hand, the sullen challenger simply walked away; instead, he was given a salute from Cena in a show of respect.

Both Cena and Michaels are men that should never be underestimated, counted out or considered defeated until their opponent is declared the winner. At WrestleMania 23, John Cena ended up as the better man, and because of that, The Champ is still here. Source: WWE Official, 2nd April 2007


INFO BOX

English Soccer Giants Top Forbes List

Manchester United, the top English soccer club, remains the most valuable soccer team in the world, increasing its lead over second-placed Real Madrid of Spain, according to an annual study by the US business and financial magazine Forbes. Manchester United were valued at $1.45 billion, with Real Madrid on $1.04 million, and England’s Arsenal, which climb up one place from fourth, on $915 million.

Italy’s Juventus, which were relegated at the end of last season for their part in a match-fixing scandal, dropped the most in value, with their $567-million valuation 18 per cent down on last season. Fellow Italian side AC Milan suffered a 10-per-cent drop in value, dropping from third to fifth in the list. England had 10 teams in the top 25, which featured four each from Italy and Germany, two each from Spain, France and Scotland and one from the Netherlands.

Olympique Lyonnais' value rose 65 per cent to $343 million after it became the first French team to go public. Barcelona of Spain are worth 22 per cent more than last year after they won the Champions League, European soccer’s top clubs competition, last May. Source: Forbes List on Sportcal, 30th March 2007

Forbes Most Valuable Soccer Teams in the World
Position (Position last year), Club, Current Value ($m)

1. (1) Manchester United – 1,373
2. (2) Real Madrid – 1,012
3. (4) Arsenal – 915
4. (5) Bayern Munich – 838
5. (3) AC Milan – 824
6. (6) Juventus – 567
7. (8) Internazionale – 555
8. (7) Chelsea – 537
9. (9) Barcelona – 535
10. (11) Schalke – 471


SPORTS SHORTS

* ITV and Setanta Sports have won the domestic TV rights package including the FA Cup and England home internationals. The move is a blow to existing rights partners, the BBC and Sky. The deal is reported to be worth £425 million and runs for four years as of August 2008. Setanta stumped up £150 million and ITV is said to be paying £275 million in return for England’s home qualifying matches, away friendly matches, England Highlights, FA Cup Highlights and the FA Cup Finals exclusively. The agreement trumps the BBC and Sky’s current deal (£300 million). It is also a personal coup for Michael Grade, ITV’s new CEO (until last December, the chairman of the BBC). Source: Sport Business, Sportcal, Rapid TV News, The Independent, Dow Jones on Total Content + Media, Worldscreen, Advanced Television, C21 Media, Brand Republic, 30th March 2007

* Meanwhile, TV pundit Gary Lineker rubbished claims his on-screen banter lost the BBC the rights to show big football matches. Lineker and co-host Alan Hansen were blamed for losing FA Cup and England home games to ITV. Both were accused of annoying the FA by being too critical of England. Last night Lineker said: "Anyone who has watched our programmes knows we've never been unfair on England. "The team has not played well and that cannot be disguised. Selling TV rights has always been about money." Source: The Sunday Mirror, IC Scotland, 1st April 2007

* Japan’s football J.League will be shown live on European television for the first time on Saturday, April 28. Eurosport 2 will show the match between Oita Trinita and Gamba Osaka in Kyushu. It will start at 08:00 for most European viewers. Eurosport 2 is running a week of Japanese programming, including sumo, karate and wrestling, from April 23-28. During the week, the channel will also have a special on-air look. Source: Sports Media, 30th March 2007

* The number of digital cable TV subscribers in China jumped to 12.66 million last year, up 200% from 2005’s 4.13 million, according to the SARFT. It also announced the release of the first mobile TV chip manufactured completely in China, Interfax reported. The chip uses China's Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB) industrial standard. In other news in China, Beijing police detained as many as 19 second-hand mobile phone retailers for selling handsets containing pornographic content since a new law came into effect at the start of March. Source: Television Asia, 2nd April 2007

* Synovate has released its Media Atlas survey results – covering 6,000 respondents aged 15-64. Some 98.4% of Hong Kong respondents watched TV within the past week. On free-to-air, 95% had watched TVB Jade, followed by ATV Home at 79%, TVB Pearl at 76% and ATV World at 52% of respondents. Drama and News were the top genres garnering 6%, while News (any channel) dominated on HK Cable with 26% followed by Movies and Sports, both watched by 22% of those surveyed. Source: Television Asia, 2nd April 2007

* According to a global football study by the German research house Sport+Markt, about 6.3 million people in Thailand watch Champions League matches. It said that interest in football was actually higher on average in Asia (62%) than on any other continent, including Europe (55%). The gross income for the Uefa Champions League for the current 2006-07 season is estimated at 750 million (35 billion baht), with television and commercial contracts contributing 743.3 million and new media 6.7 million. Source: Bangkok Post, 2nd April 2007

* Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh jumped seven places to 44th in the rankings released by the Badminton World Federation in early March. This is also the highest place reached by a Vietnamese player since none had entered the top 100 before. His rankings could get a further boost as he plays more major tournaments like the Asian Championship from April 10 to 15 and the World Championship in Malaysia on August 12-19. Source: Thanh Nien News, 6th March 2007


MORE NEWS

Global/Asia/General: Record Number Enter 2010 World Cup Qualifying

A record 204 countries have entered the qualifying competition for the 2010 World Cup. The number beats the previous record of 199 teams which entered for the 2002 World Cup. Of those, only Bhutan, Brunei, Laos and the Philippines have not registered to take part. The tournament will take place in South Africa on June 11 to July 11, 2010. The country qualifies automatically as host.

Qualifying starts in August with matches played in the South Pacific Games acting as a preliminary qualifying tournament for Oceania. Asia will provide either four or five qualifiers, as will South America, while Concacaf, which includes North and Central America and the Caribbean, will have three or four, and Oceania either none or one. Asia and Oceania teams will meet in one play-off while South American and Concacaf teams play in the other. Source: Sportcal, 30th March 2007

Asia/Broadcaster: HDTV Growing Quickly

HDTV viewing in Asia-Pacific, already almost 10 million homes in the five key markets (Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore) will “grow quickly”, says a study from In-Stat, HDTV Content Development in Asia Pacific: The Achievable Dream. HDTV households will reach 42.1 million by 2012 from 9.9 million at the end of 2006, with shipments forecast to reach 45 million by 2012.

Japan is leading HDTV content development, with over 8.5 million households receiving and watching HD service as of the end of 2006. HDTV broadcasting was introduced in Japan as an analogue signal in 1989. While Japan and Australia are largely broadcasting domestic HDTV content, elsewhere the charge is being led by international broadcasters. But more locally-produced material will be needed to achieve mass adoption of HDTV.

The report recognises that significant barriers to expansion remain, not the least of which is operator reticence. HDTV content is being marketed as a premium in Asia/Pacific, with the hope of increasing monthly revenues for cable and satellite operators, as well as providing terrestrial TV broadcasters with a new weapon in the fight against pay-TV services.

But government initiatives are playing an important part in stimulating the transition from analogue to digital in the free-to-air services domain, which will accelerate market development for HDTV content in some countries including China. Nevertheless, In-Stat expects revenues from HDTV to grow from US$3.2 billion last year to US$8.06 billion in 2012. Source: Rapid TV News, 30th March 2007

Elsewhere/Rights: Delayed TV Deal May Influence 2014 Olympic Host Vote

The International Olympic Committee vote in July to decide the host city for the 2014 winter Olympic Games is set to be the first for at least five consecutive games to take place without a US television rights deal already in place, dividing opinion among observers over whether the outcome of the vote could be influenced by television revenue considerations.

A deal worth a total of $2.2 billion had already been agreed with NBC, the IOC’s long-time broadcast partner, for the rights for the 2010 winter Olympics and the 2012 summer games a month before the voting for the 2010 host city, won by Vancouver. Before this, NBC had mounted what it referred to as a ‘pre-emptive’ $3.55-billion bid for the rights for the games of 2004, 2006 and 2008, although it said that the host city of the 2004 games, Athens, might have been known by the time the bid was agreed.

However, negotiations have not yet begun for the US rights for the 2014 games, and it is thought highly unlikely that an agreement could be reached in the time left before the vote on July 4. NBC this week denied that it had had any influence over the timing of the television rights negotiations for the 2014 games, saying: ‘It’s up to the IOC when that happens.’

Several sources had told Sportcal.com that NBC was deliberately delaying opening negotiations until after the vote, on the basis that the chosen host city would affect how much it was prepared to pay for the rights. According to the sources, NBC is particularly concerned that PyeongChang in South Korea could be chosen as the host city, because of the time difference between USA and Asia.

PyeongChang is bidding against Sochi in Russia and Salzburg in Austria to stage the 2014 games. NBC is paying between $750 million and $820 million for the rights for the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver. The possibility that PyeongChang might win the rights to stage the 2010 games is said to have played a part in the bidding by broadcasters for the US rights for the games in 2010 and 2012.

CBS, NBC’s rival US network, dropped out of the bidding for the rights a week before the IOC was due to award them, fearing, it is said, that PyeongChang might be chosen as the host city. In response to an approach by Sportcal.com over the effect of the delay in agreeing the rights deal for 2014, the IOC would only say: 'The IOC has not yet launched TV rights negotiations for 2014-2016.' Source: Sportcal, 30th March 2007

Elsewhere/Rights: Canal Plus at Odds with League over TV Production

Canal Plus, the French pay-television broadcaster, is on a collision course with French soccer’s LFP, the top-tier professional league, over the production of television coverage for the country’s top division. Having decided to boycott the LFP’s recent invitation to tender for the live rights for the second-tier Ligue 2, after the league insisted that it would produce the pictures itself, Canal Plus is set to offer less if a similar tactic is employed for the Ligue 1 tender.

Canal Plus presently holds the Ligue 1 rights exclusively, paying €600 million ($801.1 million) a year up until the end of the 2007-08 season, but has the right to produce its own coverage. According to L’Equipe, the French sports newspaper, a letter was sent by Bertrand Méheut, Canal Plus’ chairman, outlining the company’s ‘shock’ at the decision by the league to handle production for the second division.

Méheut wrote that the choice ‘technically reduced the value of the rights offered to broadcasters who could not produce their own images...we would not be able to guarantee the quality of images to our subscribers.’ The league responded by saying that all measures would be taken to ensure that the quality of production did not dip and highlighted the fact that Fifa, soccer’s world governing body and Uefa, soccer’s European governing body have been responsible for their own television production for some time. Source: Sportcal, 30th March 2007

Elsewhere/Rights: Soccer Helps German Broadcaster Fill Summer Schedule

Arena, the German pay-television broadcaster owned by a consortium of cable operators, has filled a void in its summer schedule by agreeing a deal to broadcast soccer’s 2007 Copa America, the South American national teams competition. The cable and satellite channel will broadcast all 26 games live from the tournament, that takes place between June 26 and July 15 in Venezuela.

The Arena channel, which is in its first year of operation, made its name when it acquired the live rights to German soccer’s Bundesliga for three years from this season onwards in a €240-million ($319-million) -a–year deal, and subsequently agreed deals to show matches from the top-tier soccer leagues in Spain and Italy in 2006-07. The previous Copa America, in 2004, was broadcast in Germany by Premiere, Arena’s rival cable and satellite broadcaster. Source: Sportcal, 30th March 2007