where increasingly the new media
companies are the ones that are
acquiring premium sports content
rather than the TV broadcasters. In
particular a company called Le TV
which has vast amounts of
subscribers has made headlines. They
are acquiring Champions League
rights, Tour de France rights,
Wimbledon rights. So in a market
like that where the network’s really
good and where people are moving
away from broadcast, there’s been a
huge growth in broadband
penetration for sports.
For various reasons now
broadcasters are interested in
effectively acting as gate keepers to
acquire those rights. So they’ll be
simultaneously transmitting via
their own platforms or want to put
some stuff on delay; they want to
enhance their own websites by
putting some content up.
A lot of broadcasters now are
seeing the value in fan engagement
as well, through a second screen
experience. For example, Formula
One are investing a lot of money in
that type of service as people at
home increasingly expect more
than just to be able to watch the
footage on screen. So the more
sophisticated broadcasters are
investing money now not to just
warehouse those digital rights but
to properly exploit them and use
them to enhance TV broadcasts.
FIFA also have invested heavily
– they now offer broadcasters a
service where they can drop in their
own branding/logos but FIFA are
providing all of the statistical
behind the scenes content to
enhance the TV broadcast.
If people are watching on digital
platforms will the shared
experience of sport go away?
An event like the World Cup will
stay a traditional TV product for a
significant amount of time, for
exactly the reason that it is a social
experience. You have big screens.
You have people watching it in
stadia or in cinemas. People want
their friends over. You have a meal
or a few beers. TV is perfectly
suited for that experience and the
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World Cup galvanises everyone in
the same way that the Olympics
does to a certain degree.
Over the last 10 years we’ve had
significant rights inflation. Surely
there must be a point where the
ability to pay plateaus?
Everyone keeps saying that but
every time they’ve done that deal
with Sky there’s been a new
component which has driven that
rights fee up. They’re not just
selling for a TV audience, there’s
broadband and mobile as well.
Who’s to say the next time they do
that deal there won’t be another
considerable factor in play which is
going to drive the rights fee up?
There could be another
competitor… I don’t see rights fees
going down because the media
landscape is getting increasingly
fragmented and competitive and
because sport will be a key driver
for so many media companies in
competing with one another.
Are the smaller sports benefiting
because Pay-TV can set up a new
channel overnight to cover a
specific sport?
In markets like Europe and the UK
minority sport will be helped more
by streaming and over the top TV.
In time they’ll offer a niche tailored
product to their sub-scribers on a
really personalised basis.
To take the example of yachting,
I think in time the yachting
federations will be able to say
“Okay, here’s our audience. Here
are our subscribers. Here’s the
people that want to watch us. We
will offer them a yachting channel.”
Costs are going down to set up
an OTT type service, and
production costs potentially are
going down as well for companies
to be able to offer you a yachting
production service.
You cut out the platform and
you get rid of the broadcaster. You
create the product and you fire it
straight to your subscriber. On top
of that if you know who your
subscriber is, how old they are,
where they live, what sex they are,
what their interests are other than
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MEDIA RIGHTS
caster permitted to acquire the
World Cup and Olympic rights.
And there are a number of other
territories where listed events
legislation has been flagged.
Surely the rights holders would
like a free and open market?
Coming at it from a FIFA
perspective, in a number of markets
they only list four, five, six FIFA
matches which FIFA obliges
broadcasters to put on free-to-air
TV anyway. So in many ways it’s
supporting an existing FIFA policy.
Where FIFA resists that legislation
is where efforts are made to list the
whole World Cup. But in Asia,
other than in China, I don’t think
there are any markets where
they’ve done that or are seeking to
do that just yet.
Looking at markets with Pay and
FTA, is there a marked difference
in ability to pay?
I can see that being true in certain
cases for something like the
Premier League which tends to be a
pay-TV product. But did the fact
that there was no significant pay-
TV market in Indonesia mean that
we got less money out of Indonesia
for the World Cup rights? I think
the answer is ‘no’ – the exposure’s
there, the sponsorship money’s
there, the advertising money’s there
because the market’s so huge.
The sponsor’s priority is to reach
mass audiences?
Yes, if you’re Coca-Cola, you want
eyeballs. That’s the easiest way for a
sponsor to evaluate how effective
their sponsorship has been.
For the rights holders it’s a
balance between rights, fee and
exposure. Where you strike that
balance depends on the event. For
example, if we’re talking about a
youth World Cup, then coverage is
going to be more important than
rights fee. If you’re talking about
the World Cup itself, rights fees
don’t necessarily trump exposure
but they’ll have a big part to play.
What about digital rights?
One really interesting case is China
Many TV
channels
now see
value in
fan
engagement
as well
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