Thursday, 12th June 2008

SPORTS SHORTS

* Dish TV is ramping its subscriber base. After coming out with the free set-top box (STB) offer, the direct-to-home (DTH) operator has entered into a joint marketing programme with ESPN Star Sports (ESS) which it hopes will lure new consumers to buy the service. Under the 'Summer Sports Bonanza' initiative, Dish TV will offer a cash benefit of Rs 500 to be credited back to the subscriber's account on purchase of a new connection before 30 June. This discount is over and above the free STB offer already introduced by Dish TV on 10 May by paying one year’s Maxi subscription and installation charges of Rs 3990.The cost of the three sports channels at around Rs 40 per month will, thus, be reimbursed back to the consumer in form of this credit of Rs 500. The subscriber is free to use this credit of Rs 500 to pay his onward subscription with Dish TV or buy value-added services (Vas) like movie on-demand. Indiantelevision.com, 11th June 2008

* DISH Network will present ESPN's coverage of the US Open (golf) through their Interactive TV (iTV) mosaic, a multiple-screen showcase, available to all of its more than 12 million iTV-enabled homes. The iTV mosaic features six different channels of ESPN's US Open Golf coverage. Viewers can choose to watch all six screens at once, or select one to view in a full-screen format. ATV, 11th June 2008




* Malaysia is to host this year's 14th ASEAN University Games on December 11-21, organisers have announced. The games will involve about 7,000 athletes and officials from the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, according to Mohamed Khaled Nordin, Malaysia's higher education minister. Malaysia previously hosted the games in 1984 and 1993. The games were first staged in 1981. Sportcal, 11th Jun 2008

* Broadcast Australia, the Macquarie Group-backed broadcast services provider, has formed a new joint venture which will take over the operation and management of Singapore’s DVB-H mobile TV trial. Singapore Digital is a new joint venture with PGK Media, which has been running the TV2Go mobile TV trial. Majority-owned by Broadcast Australia, the companies said that Singapore Digital would “focus on servicing Singapore’s emerging digital television sector, with a particular focus on the development of a market position that will enable the cost effective delivery of mobile TV services and continue Singapore’s leadership in digital broadcasting technologies.” Rapid TV News, 11th Jun 2008

* The IPTV Forum consisting of telecommunication carriers, broadcasters and device manufacturers in Japan has formulated a technical specification draft for IPTV service receivers. This draft assumes broadcast services using IP multicast technology as well as VOD services that deliver videos through streaming or downloads. Receivers developed in line with this technical specification draft will support 'acTVila' and 'Hikari TV' services, for example. The IPTV Forum, a voluntary organisation, plans to hand over its achievements to a new organisation that will be launched to finalise the receiver specifications and advance the maintenance work. ATV, 12th June 2008

* The fallout from the death of the Sydney Kings and likely demise of the Brisbane Bullets could drag the Australian National Basketball League into insolvency. Without the renewal of naming rights with Hummer and a new TV broadcast deal with Fox Sports, the league will not have funds to run its competition next season. The expired Fox Sports deal was worth about A$900,000 a year. A source at Fox Sports said the NBL was told that if it wanted a significant pay-TV deal the league had to first "get its house in order". An NBL source said the league was in danger of becoming insolvent without the sponsorship and TV deal last season. "It's about $1-$1.5 million to run the league in a cheap way and we have no money". Herald Sun, 12th Jun 2008

* Manchester United’s successful finish to the 2007-08 season was reflected in record results for its website in May 2008, which attracted over 5.4 million unique users from across the globe. Traffic on the website is currently trebling every two years. The figures this season were boosted by the launch of Chinese, Japanese and Korean versions of the website. Prior to May’s record-breaking figures, April 2008 was the previous best month. Manchester United’s website has been developed, and is managed, by IMG Media, in a partnership which stretches back to 1998. Sportsbusiness.com, 11th June 2008

* Soccerex 2008 latest signings include Aston Villa, Juventus FC, Real Madrid CF and the Urawa Red Diamonds. This November, Soccerex 2008 will see a global cross section of rights holders convening for four days, providing an unparalleled opportunity for all industry decision makers. With over 1500 delegates having already confirmed their presence at Soccerex 2008, this year’s event will be the hub of the football industry. In 2008 alone Soccerex will have provided networking platforms in Dubai, London and South Africa. Sportsbusiness.com, 11th June 2008

* Ultimate Motorsport, the British Formula 3 motor racing team, is in talks to acquire a stake in F1 outfit Toro Rosso and hopes to break into the top series next year. Toro Rosso, formerly Minardi, is co-owned by Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian head of Red Bull, and ex-F1 driver Gerhard Berger. Ultimate team principal Barry Walsh said: ‘We are in negotiations so I can’t reveal too much about it until everything is final. We always set out with Formula 1 as the target. I would only have got involved in the project in the first place if I was confident we could take it all the way to F1, that is the aim.’ Mateschitz, who also owns the Red Bull Racing team, said this year that he was planning to sell his stake in Toro Rosso before 2010, when new rules forcing teams to design and build their own cars are due to come into effect. Toro Rosso currently rely on engines provided by Italian Formula 1 giants Ferrari. Sportcal.com, 11th June 2008

* The Council of the International Korfball Federation (IKF) has opted to introduce a shot clock at its international competitions. Starting with the World Games Korfball Tournament in Chinese Taipei in July 2009, the shot clock will limit to 25 seconds the time that players can have possession in the attack zone. Extensive experiments with the shot clock have been conducted in the leading leagues in Belgium and the Netherlands, where it has further increased the speed of the game. While the rule will be used in international senior competitions, each National Federation can determine if, and at which level, the shot clock will be used. Sport Insider, 11th Jun 2008


MORE NEWS




Global/Rights: Eurosport Plans to Consolidate Move into Big Time with Bundesliga







Eurosport, the pan-European cable and satellite broadcaster, has targeted an ambitious swoop for international rights to German soccer’s top-tier Bundesliga in a move that could significantly strengthen its market position. Jacques Raynaud, Eurosport’s vice-president, revealed that the broadcaster had already held discussions with the DFL, the German football league, about buying rights to broadcast the Bundesliga outside Germany from 2009-10 onwards.







Raynaud told Handelsblatt, the German financial newspaper: ‘Eurosport is interested in buying the international rights to the football Bundesliga. We have already held preliminary talks with the DFL.’ Eurosport’s interest is apparently not in distributing the rights but in showing the matches on its own channels across Europe, where it is available in 112 million households in 59 countries. The DFL is to form its own agency this summer, to be based in Frankfurt, the headquarters of the league, to distribute the international rights for the league in-house.







Eurosport is reported to be seeking to pay between €16 million ($24.8 million) and €20 million a season for international rights for the Bundesliga, a large investment for the broadcaster, even though Raynaud has admitted that it would be difficult to ‘refinance the expensive broadcast rights through advertising and charges.’







The Bundesliga’s international rights worldwide are presently worth in the region of €20 million a season, but the DFL has vowed to raise this figure to €30 million a season in the 2009-10 season, and to €35 million and €40 million in the subsequent two seasons. From 2009-10, the DFL has targeted increased exposure and revenue from broadcast deals in Eastern Europe and Asia, and a single deal with Eurosport would guarantee widespread coverage in large parts of those regions. Eurosport’s Asia-Pacific channel is available in territories such as Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Singapore, and the main Eurosport channel is broadcast in Eastern European countries that include Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia and the Ukraine. However, Eurosport is often found on pay-television platforms in these countries, whereas it is free to receive on cable in Germany.







Pan-European soccer rights held by the broadcaster include delayed rights to the Euro 2008 European Championships, various Uefa and Fifa international youth tournaments and the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, but the addition of a major European soccer league to its portfolio would be a significant boost. Eurosport already holds rights in Hungary and Romania for the FA Premier League, England's top division.







International rights for the Bundesliga are presently distributed by the Sportsman Media Group agency, which has a contract until the end of next season. Sportsman distributes the rights on behalf of Bwin, the Austria-based online gaming firm. The Sportsman Media Group said in February that, with around 190 countries now covered by live, delayed, highlights or news clips deals for the Bundesliga, it could be ‘difficult’ to grow the number much further. The Bundesliga has traditionally been regarded as the poor relation of its counterparts in England, Spain and Italy in terms of the international coverage it receives.




Elsewhere/General: England and West Indies Cricketers to Contest 'Richest Match in Sport'

The first of five big-money Twenty20 cricket matches between England and a West Indies all-star team will take place in Antigua in November. The Stanford 20/20 for 20 is being backed by Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, who is putting up prize money of $20 million for the first ‘winner-takes-all’ game. Four more are planned over the next four years. The $20-million prize is being described as ‘the richest team prize for a single sporting match’ and each winning player stands to earn $1 million, with a further $2 million to be split amongst the rest of the squad and the coaching staff. The remaining $7 million will be shared between the England and Wales Cricket Board and the West Indies Cricket Board regardless of the result.

The first clash between England and the Stanford Super Stars will take place under floodlights at Stanford’s own cricket ground in Antigua on November 1 and he is excited by the prospect. Speaking at the launch at Lord's Cricket Ground in London today, the financier said: ‘It is one night, winner-takes-all $20 million. The winner goes home happy, the loser goes home unhappy. ‘We had to create something that had never been done before and take cricket to the previous level in the Caribbean, we have not been running our sport at a professional level.’

Stanford is the chairman of Stanford Financial Group and founder of the Stanford 20/20, a Twenty20 competition contested by countries in the Caribbean. He has also been in talks with the ECB about staging a four-team international Twenty20 competition at Lord’s every year. The ECB and the WICB are co-operating in the Stanford 20/20 for 20 venture and the International Cricket Council has agreed to give the matches official status. ECB chairman Giles Clarke said today: ‘We are extremely delighted that Sir Allen has chosen to work in partnership with the ECB. These matches will offer a chance for not only international cricketers but cricket at all levels – both here and in the Caribbean – to benefit. It is a hugely exciting time for cricket and particularly Twenty20 cricket.’

The short-format game has proved to be incredibly popular since it was introduced in English county cricket in 2003 and a first world championship, the World Twenty20, was held in South Africa last year. This year has seen the launch of the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 competition featuring some of the world’s top players, which proved to be highly lucrative, and it will be followed by a Champions League, involving leading teams from India, England, Australia and South Africa, in India or the Middle East in late-September and early-October. Sportcal.com, 11th June 2008

China/Broadcast: Conditional Access

News Corp-owned NDS is the number one conditional access supplier for pay-TV, according to a report just out. Moreover, it is expected to hold onto that lead through into 2010, ahead of Kudelski and Motorola. But a Chinese CA vendor, China Digital TV (execs pictured left, at the company's 2007 IPO) is storming up the global league table. Texas-based IMS Research predicts that the international league table of CA vendors will see some considerable movement over the next few years. First up, IMS says that while NDS and Kudelski will hold on to their number one and number two positions respectively, by 2010 Motorola, currently the world’s number three supplier will have swapped positions with Irdeto (currently at number four).

However, China’s mammoth size in terms of potential connections – although not measured at anything like the same per-home value that a mature, so-called “Western” market would have, means in terms of actual homes connected that China Digital TV (formerly known as Novel SuperTV or Novel Tongfang) is snapping at all their heels. In fact, IMS states that if it were not for the 4m-home switchover from Kudelski to NDS at Premiere, plus CA contract wins at Astro (Malaysia), NDS might not have kept its league-topping position from China DigitalTV.

IMS Research analyst Stephen Froehlich notes “Assuming no new major switchovers, by 2010, the leading position of China Digital TV Holding Co. in the Chinese market is likely to make it the fourth or fifth largest CA provider in the world in terms of the number of subscribers (households) it secures.”

IMS say that China Digital TV and Motorola will each secure “nearly 10% of the world’s digital TV subscriptions by 2010.” Specifically referring to the Chinese market IMS stresses that amongst Western suppliers of CA services, Irdeto leads in China, followed by NDS. Indeed, while not wholly decamping to China, Irdeto has certainly focussed very much on the Chinese market this past year or so, and with growing success. RapidTVnews.com, 11th June 2008