SPORTS

SPORTS: NEW MEDIA/TECHNOLOGY

March, 2007

This report contains articles published in March, 2007, drawn from SBRnet's publications database including:

Revenues From Sports Venues
SGB's Inside Sporting Goods
Sport And Technology (e-Newsletter)
SportBusiness International
Sporting Goods Business
Sporting Goods Dealer
SportsPipe

SportsPipe
March 27, 2007
Enth Announces Partnership With Stats To Launch Sports Search Engine

Enth, Inc., the next generation search engine, announced today a partnership with STATS LLC, the world's leading sports information provider. STATS' in-depth data will be the foundation of Enth's recently launched sports search engine. The agreement provides Enth with real-time data updates throughout the Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Football League (NFL) seasons.

Enth's next generation search engine, found online at http://www.enth.com/, enables sports fans and enthusiasts to aggregate, filter and sort information within a structured database to get the exact results they're looking for. Built upon a user-friendly system, Enth delivers a search-like experience into traditional relational databases. Rather than a passive search service, Enth actually creates new content based on the search to quickly satisfy a user's request.

Through the relationship between Enth and STATS, visitors to http://www.enth.com/ can locate specific sports data in a remarkably short period of time. By typing a simple phrase, users can obtain their desired information in a matter of moments. For example, if you typed, "Who had the most RBIs in 2006 with at least 20 games at shortstop," Enth quickly returns the answer, "Michael Young with 103 RBI's."

"We're excited to partner with a company that is committed to providing its users with such a fast and easy-to-use tool to help them find the exact statistic they're looking for," said Jim Capuano, vice president of sales for STATS, LLC. "Enth's unique ability to search our vast database provides information that sports fans once only dreamed of."

"By partnering with STATS, we combine the premier source of sports data with our state-of-the-art technology to create a unique, extremely user-friendly search engine that will change the way in which we search for sports statistics," said Enth founder John Grace." As we grow and evolve, we envision Enth's technology revolutionizing the manner in which information is found via the Internet."

SportsPipe
March 26, 2007
MLB, MLB Advanced Media, DHL Announce Multi Year Sponsorship Extension

DHL becomes title sponsor of Major League Baseball All-Star FanFest through 2010

Major League Baseball Properties, Major League Baseball Advanced Media and DHL, the world's leading express delivery and logistics company, today announced a new sponsorship agreement that extends DHL's business partnership with Major League Baseball Properties and Major League Baseball Advanced Media through the 2010 season. The agreement includes exclusive category rights as the "Official Express Delivery and Logistics Provider of Major League Baseball and MLB.com" and a new and exciting element, the title sponsorship of MLB All-Star FanFest, the interactive baseball theme park that is the cornerstone of Major League Baseball All-Star Week.

DHL All-Star FanFest, as it will be known, is! the largest baseball fan event in the world. It will be held this year on July 6-10 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. The event, which attracts over 100,000 annually, gives fans of all ages a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fully explore and experience the world of baseball. Visitors to DHL All-Star FanFest will be able to enjoy the nonstop action of more than 40 baseball-themed attractions, including video pitching and batting cages, autograph sessions with Hall of Fame players and Major League legends, baseball skills clinics taught by current and former MLB players as well as the largest exhibit of historic memorabilia, which will feature items on loan from the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum.

"Major League Baseball is proud of our growing relationship with DHL, who in just two years time has demonstrated itself to be a creative and valuable business partner," said Tim Brosnan, Executive Vice President, Business, Major League Baseball. "The extension and expansion of our partnership with DHL, which now includes entitlement to All-Star FanFest, reflects the strength we both see in this event and the platform it provides to demonstrate our shared commitment to serving baseball fans."

"The passion of baseball fans is inspiring, much like the dedication that our employees exhibit each and every day in serving our customers. That is one reason why our partnership with Major League Baseball is a great fit," said Karen Jones, Senior Vice President for Marketing and Communications, DHL "We are looking forward to a tremendous season and an exciting time at DHL All-Star FanFest in San Francisco. It will be a great experience for fans."

DHL's support of All-Star FanFest will extend to the show floor in a number of significant, fan-friendly ways. In keeping with DHL's commitment to providing a superior customer experience, fans entering All-Star FanFest will be greeted by a newly designed Customer Service Center. DHL's Shipping Zone will be available to all fans who wish to ship souvenirs and memorabilia from DHL All-Star FanFest. Major League Baseball and DHL are also introducing a DHL Express Lane at select feature attractions with the ability for visitors to have an enhanced experience.

In an extension of the successful 2006 promotion "DHL Presents Major League Baseball Hometown Heroes", MLB and DHL will unveil a new section of the popular FanFest Hometown Heroes exhibit, which showcases Hometown Heroes within each All-Star host city.

DHL continues to be the presenting sponsor of two officially-sanctioned Major League Baseball Awards: "DHL presents the Major League Baseball Delivery Man of the Month" and "DHL presents the Major League Baseball Delivery Man of the Year." The awards, which will be featured on MLB.com throughout the season, recognize the most outstanding performance! by a relief pitcher. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees has been named the recipient of the "DHL Presents the Major League Baseball Delivery Man of the Year Award" for two consecutive years.

As part of the overall agreement, DHL will continue to make significant media commitments to national MLB television rightsholders. DHL is also an official sponsor of seven Major League Clubs: Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, and San Francisco Giants, host of the 78th Major League Baseball All-Star Game this July, as well as the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

SportsPipe
March 15, 2007
CBS Sports, The NCAA And Pontiac Bring NCAA March Madness To Sponsored CBS Sports NCAA Tournament Channel On YouTube

CBS To Monetize NCAA Agreement Through Sponsorship of Online Channel by Pontiac

Building on the Success of NCAA(R) March Madness(R) on Demand the 'CBS Sports NCAA Tournament Channel' Allows the YouTube Community to Interact With Game Clips and Highlights in Near Real Time

CBS Sports, the NCAA and Pontiac will bring NCAA(R) March Madness(R) to YouTube, the announcement was made today with the launch of the CBS Sports NCAA Tournament Channel (www.youtube.com/cbsncaatourney), sponsored by Pontiac on YouTube. This CBS Sports programming will feature NCAA game clips and highlights -- uploaded by CSTV in near real time -- from the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball! Championship which begins airing today, on the CBS Television Network and online through NCAA(R) March Madness(R) on Demand on NCAASports.com, CBS SportsLine.com and CSTV.com.

"Through this agreement, CBS is monetizing its content on the Internet and proving that world-class programming can help bring brand-name advertisers to online platforms," said Sean McManus, President, CBS Sports and News. "This year, CBS Sports and YouTube will expand on the success of March Madness on Demand reaching sports fans everywhere, on all levels across all media, making the fan the real winner as we enter this Tournament."

"The NCAA continues to look for new and creative avenues to promote and enhance the game of college basketball and the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship," said Greg Shaheen, NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball and Business Strategies. "YouTube will allow both the NCAA and CBS to reach a broader audience and will provide increased exposure for the men's basketball championship."

The CBS Sports NCAA Tournament Channel on YouTube will include NCAA game tournament highlights as soon as they happen, press conferences and various video produced by CBS Sports, CBS SportsLine and CSTV surrounding coverage of the tournament. Game elements will be uniquely tailored by CSTV for the YouTube community and uploaded as close to LIVE as possible so fans can interact with the content almost immediately. Users will also be able to interact with each other having the ability to comment on NCAA tournament clips, rating them, recommending them to friends and posting their own video responses to communicate with other viewers. The new branded channel will also include links to CBS Sports, CBS SportsLine, CSTV, and the NCAA's official Website, NCAASports.com, making it easy for fans to effortlessly move from YouTube, back to the full games being featured online through NCAA(R) March Madness(R) on Demand.

The CBS Sports NCAA Tournament Channel, which will be sponsored by Pontiac, will give the YouTube community the opportunity to easily interact with and share their favorite game moments -- all of which will be made available on the channel.

"The NCAA Tournament is consistently one of the most exciting experiences in all of sports," said Suzie Reider, Head of Advertising Sales, YouTube. "Tournament coverage is a welcome addition to the site. Our community is incredibly fortunate to be able to engage this high-quality CBS Sports and NCAA content in an entirely new way, strengthening YouTube's expansive range of sports content. We're hopeful this partnership will also introduce the tournament and NCAA basketball to an even wider audience than it already enjoys."

In addition, the YouTube community will be encouraged to vote on their favorite round-by-round Pontiac "Game Changing Performances" at NCAASports.com. The top vote earning tea m of the Pontiac challenge will be announced live on CBS during halftime of the NCAA championship game on Monday, April 2. The winning team's school will receive a $100,000 general scholarship.

"Traditional media working with new media is better for the fans and better for us," said Mark-Hans Richer, Pontiac Marketing Director. "Now our Pontiac Game Changing Performance platform is more viral which is great for the fans, students and the NCAA."

SGB Update
March 12, 2007
Golf Galaxy Launches Golf Education Website

Golf Galaxy, Inc. launched www.RalphMaltby.com, a new web site designed to help golfers improve their game through education and information on the technical aspects of design, technology, and equipment.

Filled with technical tips, definitions, articles, and Q&A's with industry experts, RalphMaltby.com caters to beginners as well as technically-savvy golfers as content changes based on what the user initially selects on the homepage. Topics such as moment-of-inertia (MOI), how to improve putting, driver playability, golf ball flight dynamics, and more are discussed at length in a scientific yet easy-to-understand manner.

Web site users can also post comments to articles and engage in dialogue with other golfers and industry experts including Ralph Maltby, founder of The GolfWorks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Golf Galaxy, and a leading expert on club fitting, alteration, and repair topics.

"One of my goals with RalphMaltby.com is to provide varying levels of golf club technical knowledge to the golfing public so that they can make better and more informed decisions regarding equipment," said Maltby, who authored all web site content. "This site is not about shooting from the hip or expounding non-factual opinions. It's all based on science."

Justin Royer, Golf Galaxy's vice president of marketing added, "Ralph is known as one of the premier authorities in the golf industry on the topics of club fitting, alteration, repair as well as research and design. This website will allow him to share his works from the last 40 years which will ultimately allow golfers to play better golf. We are excited to make this information easily available to all golfers."

Golf Galaxy, Inc., based in Eden Prairie, Minn., owns and operates golf specialty retail stores. The company currently operates 66 stores in 24 states as well as an ecommerce site and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc.

SportsPipe
March 12, 2007
SI.com And NBCSports.com Announce Content Partnership

NBC Broadband Video, SI Writers & Photography at Center of New Relationship

SI.com and NBCSports.com have partnered to bring sports fans the broadband video, breaking news & analysis and photography that have made both sites popular destinations on the Web, it was announced by Jeff Price, President, SI Digital and Perkins Miller, Senior Vice President, Digital Media, NBC Sports & Olympics.

The cross-promotional partnership launched this weekend with broadband segments produced by NBCSports.com and featured on SI.com. Highlights of the relationship include:

-SI.com will regularly point viewers toward NBCSports.com broadband segments featuring breaking news, short-form programming and post-game interviews as well as sports update segments on weekends. SI will also point its viewers to NBC's Rotoworld fantasy news and information from its player and team pages.

-NBCSports.com will produce SI writer broadband segments and point its viewers toward SI.com for writer analysis & commentary, SI's renowned photography and its popular Truth & Rumors daily feature.

-Additional daily programming involving NBC Sports and SI talent will be announced in the coming weeks.

-Opportunity for advertisers to leverage cross-platform, multi-media buys across the NBC Sports and Sports Illustrated franchises.

"The speed and depth of SI.com content and the broadband video power of NBCSports.com is a unique combination of resources that enhances the user experience for fans on both sites," said Price. "Building a strong relationship that leverages NBC Sports powerful video storytelling ability furthers our efforts to partner with the best brands in! sports."

"From our live pre-game programming for Notre Dame and the NHL, to our wrap-up shows for football and golf, NBCSports.com has been on the forefront of original broadband sports programming," says Miller. "With SI.com's world-class writing and photography, married with our Rotoworld fantasy news, NBCSports.com users will have a richer, more informative visit than ever before."

About NBCSports.com

NBCSports.com, launched in September 2006, is one of the fastest growing sports content websites on the Internet. It provides comprehensive sports coverage, including scores, stats and analysis for all the major sports including the NFL, college football, MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, PGA TOUR, college basketball, poker, tennis and more.

The site features stories and features from some of the industries foremost sportswriters including Alan Abrahamson, John Walters and Tom Curran, live streaming webcasts including "NHL on NBC Faceoff" - an NHL pre-game show! , the NYC Marathon and the FIS World Ski Championships. Additionally, there is an extensive video clip library, a variety of interactive features and blogs from a number of NBC Sports broadcasters and pro athletes including Giants kicker Jay Feely, Jaguars lineman Marcellus Wiley and NBCSports.com's resident hockey expert "The Bellowing Moose."

The fantasy sports, including football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR and golf, are powered by AllStarStats and Rotoworld, companies that were acquired in September of 2006 in order to supplement the offerings of NBCSports.com. Rotoworld.com site is the highest-trafficked, fantasy sports content site on the Internet.

SportsPipe
March 8, 2007
Ratings Game

NBA.com SETS ALL-TIME MONTHLY RECORDS FOR UNIQUE VISITS AND BROADBAND VIDEOS ACCESSED

NBA.com Ranked No. 3 Most Popular Sports Web Site in the World -

NBA.com set the all-time monthly records with nearly 15 million unique domestic visits and 30.5 million broadband videos accessed worldwide during the month of February 2007.

Overall, it was the third consecutive month that NBA.com (www.nba.com) has set new traffic marks for unique domestic visits and broadband videos accessed. During this time, unique domestic visits have increased by more than 20 percent and broadband videos accessed by 25 percent when compared to traffic to NBA.com during the same period last year.

Additionally, on the recently launched NBA Channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/nba) nearly 2 million videos have been viewed by fans during the first few days.

“Record numbers of fans in the United States and around the world continue to turn to NBA.com to find the most in-depth coverage of the NBA anywhere,” said Steve Hellmuth, Senior Vice President, Operations and Technology, NBA Entertainment. “And through recent deals with YouTube, popular widgets and innovative wireless features we continue to reach more fans in unique ways and across multiple platforms.”

The new monthly records are further highlighted by NBA.com being ranked as the third most popular sports web site according to daily traffic rankings on Alexa Internet (www.alexa.com), a service owned and operated by Amazon.com which ranks web sites based on their global traffic levels. In the rankings, based on a period of 90 days, NBA.com only trails ESPN.com and Yahoo! Sports.

Currently, more than half of all traffic to NBA.com comes from fans outside of the U.S., including 20 percent from fans in China. NBA.com features ten language-specific international destinations, including NBA.com/hongkong which was unveiled at the start of the 2006-07 NBA season.

SportsPipe
March 6, 2007
Sports Video Sharing Site Launches With NCAA Tournament

In a matter of days, millions of people will fill out their March Madness brackets in hopes of defeating their co-workers and family members. But this year's tournament will have a new community of fans online. FreeTheFan.com launches in beta version today and provides a bracket competition and video-sharing platform. Users can discuss their final four picks, argue about which Cinderella team will pull out the upset and interact every step of the way. Fans can upload video opinions or record webcam comments directly to the site.

FreeTheFan.com is a social network centered on sports talk. Now the average sports fan can make predictions and analyze the upcoming game just like a professional sportscaster. Fans can communicate by uploading videos, making text comments and creating groups around their favorite teams.

Signup for the NCAA Bracket is free and prizes include a 50" Plasma TV and a "Webcam-A-Day Giveaway,” from Overstock.com. Webcams are an easy way for users to post their opinions and create video blogs.

FreeTheFan.com harnesses the power of the video sharing community and the dedication of the sports enthusiast. Fans from across the nation can compete in weekly contests by debating the sports headlines making news.

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
Broadcast In Turmoil…Even If Broadcasters Don’t Realise It Yet!

The world of broadcast is in turmoil- even if broadcasters don’t realise it yet.

They wield a great deal of power and influence over sport yet do not always serve the customer – the sports fan – well.

The arrival of Internet delivered television changes the balance by changing the economics of delivering sports events to the people who want to watch them, wherever in the world they are.

Traditional broadcasters have to realise that this change is upon them although I believe that there is room for both new and traditional media as complimentary distribution platforms both playing to their individual strengths.

Today’s world is skewed in that there are a small number of rights holders or federations, such as UEFA and the Premier League, that almost can not fail to secure massive rights deals in almost every country around the world.

Contrast this with the majority of sports that struggle to obtain airtime and reasonable rights fees. Examples include table tennis, squash, rowing and swimming but the list is endless.

The sport that I am involved with as a rights owner, promoter and with new media broadcaster SecondsOut.com is boxing. This sport is unusual because at times it can produce mega events almost beyond compare. The upcoming contest between Floyd Mayweather and Oscar D’Lahoya is expected to gross approaching $100,000,000. However, on the other hand, some major world title matches, such as Wlodarczyk (Pol) V Cunningham. (USA) are of no interest to the traditional broadcaster.

The Internet can make these major events work where the traditional media organisation struggles, By gathering an audience of fans from around the globe they achieve the critical mass required to make the financials work, almost irrespective of the nationalities of the participants.

Traditional sports broadcasters wield power, not always knowingly, in a detrimental way. In boxing, for example, is not unusual for a broadcaster to be at odds with the sports governing body by refusing to accept a mandatory challenger for a match as he is of little interest to them domestically. This has often led to the bizarre situation of the boxer relinquishing his or her title in order to maintain a broadcasting relationship with the host broadcaster. This is often the case with HBO.

The Internet broadcaster of the future will mitigate all of these issues because they will become a truly global provider and will be able to create critical viewing mass from the core of genuine sports fan from around the world.

Sport And Technology
March, 2007
Case Study: Game, Set And Mobile Match

After a slight doldrum in the 1990s, tennis is back with a bang, writes PA Sportev’s chief operating officer Steve Akers, and offers some of the most exciting action of any sport across the world. As a truly global game, new media is an important factor in its exposure over the coming years, and London-based PA Sportev is at the heart of this explosion of new media content.

PA Sportev was founded in 1999 (as Sportev) and has spent over seven years building and implementing IP video delivery solutions for the world's largest broadband networks, mobile networks and sports rights holder customers. The company’s London facility (within a Tier 1 ISP for maximum connectivity), enables it to receive audiovisual feeds direct from BT Tower or via satellite, as well as capture content from tape, DVD and via IP.

PA Sportev currently delivers live and on-demand video solutions to over 50 mobile and broadband network customers in more than 30 territories worldwide including Vodafone, Optus, BT Yahoo!, Orange and Hutchison 3G. PA Sportev is also the Official New Media Partner to some of the world's largest sports rights holders, including the FA Premier League (English soccer) and England rugby.

PA Sportev's prinicpal tennis broadband product is Daviscup.tv. For over five years, the company has provided highlights of every tie of every match, from Croatia's knife-edge win in 2005's final to Sweden's shock first round victory over Australia in 2004. The site is fully interactive, with each match offering high quality video and key stats to give the user a unique experience. The site is free to use (only registration is required), and works with all leading Internet browsers. An interactive archive is of the previous year's tournament is also available.

Tennis on the go

PA Sportev is also leading the line with its tennis mobile products. Working closely both with rights holders and mobile clients, it has produced pioneering WAP sites that offer a way for tournament sponsors to gain maximum multi-platform exposure. This is particularly important for the global interest that Grand Slam tournaments offer, and PA Sportev has produced WAP products for the French (pictured above right courtesy of Getty Images Sport/AFP and photographed by Jack Guez) , US and Australian Opens.

All Sportev wapsites are built using the XHTML 1.0 (WAP 2.0) specification.

This specification is standard for all modern phones (produced within the last four years). PA Sportev avoids using mark-ups that may prove troublesome for older browsers and design all sites to be compatible with the widest possible range of mobile device browsers, combining attention to detail in presentation with the smallest possible download size.

Commercially the sites are funded by the federations and used as additional methods of distribution. Roland Garros licensed the video and data products out to mobile operators in France, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and South Africa. The money generated from this licensing provided the resource to develop a direct to consumer product which is accessible from any WAP-enabled phone on any network in any territory. The direct to user site generated over 500,000 hits during the two weeks of the tournament and has been re-commissioned for the 2007 tournament in June.

The Australian Open

Optus, a major sponsor of the Australian Open, wanted a WAP site that didn’t just work for it commercially but also could be used as an effective marketing tool to its 2m or so subscribers. With PA Sportev already running the entire Premier League WAP site for Optus, the company was a natural choice to develop the mobile operator’s site for the Australian Open (OptusZoo).

The Optus site gave tennis fans the chance to check live scores on the go, watch video highlights, read player profiles, check the schedule of play and much more.

“It has been a fantastic drawcard for fans on the Optus service,” said Michael Smith, consumer group marketing director for Optus, speaking during the 2007 Australian Open, “and complements the sponsorship and telecoms partnership that Optus has in place with the Australian Open. As content partners, the Sportev crew have been nimble and responsive in creating this site to the highest standards."

During the 2007 event, the Australian Open mobile site in OptusZoo supported 29,132 unique browsers and received 190,365 total page impressions of which the following was recorded:

Live updates: 76,273 impressions
Match results: 44,387 impressions
Landing page: 41,449 impressions
Schedule: 12,625 impressions
News: 8,174 impressions
Video: 5,256 impressions
Competition: 763 entries

The Australian Open dominated sports interest in that period and was a key driver of Optus’ content traffic to the OptusZoo Sport Channel and the Australian Open traffic comprised 67% of the operator’s Sport Channel traffic. Optus’ total page impressions for the OptusZoo Sport Channel were 284,655 for the fortnight from 15 to 28 January. The overall page impressions on OptusZoo mobile were 3,393,395 for the same period.

“The Australian Open traffic therefore made up almost 6% of the total site traffic which is substantial when it is a limited time period of only two weeks and the One Day Internationals Cricket Series was on at the same Time," added Smith.

Finally, Optus was thrilled to receive 853 entries for an Australian Open competition that it ran, which included the question: “What would give you the competitive advantage against Roger Federer? The winner's response, in truly inimitable Australian style, was as follows: “A John Newcombe serve and a Tony Roche volley, Rosewall forehand and backhand by Stolle, legs like Lleyton and a Pat Cash smash all rolled up with Rafter panache.” A tough challenge indeed for genetic engineers!

Sport And Technology
March, 2007
Case Study: London Marathon Runners Prefer Chips

On 22 April 2007, some 35,000 runners will line up on the England capital’s Blackheath for the start of the 27th London marathon. And thanks to UK-based technology consultancy, Marathon IT, every single runner will know his or her time to the very second, despite the fact that they all start seconds, minutes or even an hour apart as the huge throng surges across the Blackheath start line. There will also be around 6,600 Marshall’s on duty to ensure the runners and spectators keep to their respective sides of the route.

The course takes in some of the capital’s finest sights – Cutty Sark, the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace - and will draw crowds of around a million who will line the 26 mile route.

But once the elite racers have finished – past winners include such great names as Joyce Smith (1981) Charlie Spedding (1984), Steve Jones (1985), Eamonn Martin (1993), Ingrid Kristiansen (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988) Joyce Chepchumba (1997, 1999), six-times wheelchair marathon winner Tanni Grey-Thompson and Paula Radcliffe (2002, 2003, 2005) - there's another four or five hours while the ‘charity’ entrants run, jog, walk or crawl across the finishing line. For these people, their time may not be world-class but it is still absolutely vital it is right.

A fundraising juggernault

The Flora London marathon is the largest annual fundraising event in the world, raising over �41.5m pounds for deserving causes in 2006. It will also be the most high-tech race in the history of the event, with each of the 35,000 runners having their own personal ‘microchip timers’.

As part of the pre-race registration procedure, each runner receives an electronic identification chip. This small silicon chip, with its passive transponder, is attached to the runner’s shoelaces and emits a signal each time the runner passes over the ‘reader mats’ strategically placed at 5km intervals.

The chips give an accurate time and position on the progress of all entrants and the marathon’s official results are based on the elapsed time of each runner between crossing the mats at the start and finish lines. The signals emitted by the chip are managed by an integrated computerised system designed and developed over the last seven years by Marathon IT, the London marathon's independent information technology services provider.

The processed data including analytical graphics is also used to feed BBC TV Sport for immediate on-screen display to millions of viewers worldwide. The same information is routed to the marathon's command post and press centre where the information is disseminated to the world's sports media.

Paul Hepburn, managing director of Marathon IT, said: ‘This is a live broadcast event which demands rock-solid IT back-up, so we use tried-and-trusted technology, designed, planned and implemented by our experienced IT professionals. We don’t have a second chance to get it right on the day.’

Hepburn and his Marathon IT team are currently heightening their technical preparations for this year’s marathon by undertaking a series of agreed acceptance tests using modeling and simulation techniques, analysing full and isolated data re-runs of the 2006 race. Marathon IT staff have gained an enviable amount of knowledge and experience by plying their skills and services at each of the past seven London Marathons.

Testing, one, two, three

As part of the preparations for the London Marathon (pictured right courtesy of Getty Images Sport and photographed by Hugo Philpott), the Marathon IT team was out in force at the Adidas Silverstone half marathon on 18 March 2007. The team used this opportunity to carry-out a range of tests and live simulations to ensure the systems, equipment and operators are ready for London’s 22 April event.

And it’s not only the eyes of the world’s media that will be interested in the performance of the high-tech personal timing system this year. The Marathon IT system is attracting attention from other areas of the sporting world, both at regional and national level. Among these are In-line Skating, Cycling, Triathlon and Duathlon, all of whom are keen to learn how they can accurately measure ‘big field performers’ exact race times.

There are no surprises then that the planning and preparations for the 2008 London Marathon are now underway.

The Marathon IT Limited consultancy practice has over 20 years of experience and provides solutions to several different market sectors including small local business, corporate companies head quartered in the City of London, Local Government, NHS and time critical sports bodies.

Marathon IT prides itself on helping its customers and clients to ‘raise the bar’ by maximising the value of IT to their businesses; this is achieved by enabling the client to take advantage of proven independent information technologies, which enables clients to concentrate on their core business activities, safe in the knowledge that Marathon IT is ‘keeping the IT systems running’.

For further information, contact: paul.hepburn@marathon-it.co.uk or visit www.marathon-it.co.uk

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
Lines Call

The Premier League will net more than $1 billion from its latest round of overseas media rights deals. PHIL LINES, head of overseas television and media, tells KEVIN ROBERTS how the league has become the most successful international sports property outside the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup.

By the time SportelAmerica gets under way in Miami later this month, most of the contracts which will confirm the English Premier League as the world’s most valuable to overseas broadcasters will have been completed.

The result of the current round of negotiations is an increase of around 100 per cent in the value compared to the last round of negotiations three years ago. In total the deals will be worth more than $1 billion, keeping The Premier League - as it will be known universally following its recent re-branding – well ahead of other major European soccer leagues ad even the mighty NFL in terms of rights revenue generated overseas.

But for Phil Lines, the Premier League’s head of overseas TV and media and the man responsible for delivering the revenue which help ensure further massive pay days for the league’s 20 clubs, the satisfaction of a job well done doesn’t mean it time to put his feet up.

“It is a never ending cycle of sales and then servicing the contracts. There’s always a challenge of some sort to deal with,” he says.

Lines is a sports media veteran whose career began as a local journalist and progressed into television through the BBC, Visnews, Formula1, Grandslam Sports and ITV before he joined The Premier League five years ago.

There he found a product which had fired the imagination of the world beyond Blighty. Before The Premier League launched in 1992, English club football appeared to be losing the plot. With notable exceptions, the game was somewhat colourless, tainted by hooliganism and sneered at in some corporate quarters.

Today the picture is very different. New stadia, the near elimination of hooliganism in and immediately around the grounds and the arrival of some of the finest payers on the planet have seen the sport’s stock rise to an all time high. And all those factors have played a role in making The Premier League the international draw card it is today from Utah to Ulan Bator.

“We are way out in front of other national football leagues and even the UEFA Champions League,” said Lines.

“I think the only sports events which are comparable are the World Cup and Olympics and we offer something very different to them. They happen every four years and generate an enormous explosion of media frenzy and public interest. But our programming takes up a lot of the year every year and is, therefore, probably the number one subscription driver. While I am aware that commercial free to air broadcasters are showing more interest in our rights, the gap between them and pay operators is still large.”

And in sports television, significant investment in rights tends to become all consuming.

“The more people pay for out rights the more they want to use our products and the more attention is focused on it. That means there is less money to spend on other things,” Lines said.

So what is it that makes the Premier League able to command such high levels of attention and commensurately high rights fees?

“For us the heritage of football in Britain still counts for a lot. If you look at places like the Far East and Sub Continent, where the interest in football has grown every decade of late, we’re talking about historical alliances. It is no coincidence that their interest has focused on English football rather than Spanish or Italian and, by the same logic, it is why it is harder for us to break into being the number one football competition in South America. “Although we’re starting to make some inroads into the Latin markets, partly because our clubs now have the kind of money they need to go out ands but the top Italian, Spanish and South American stars, you’re always going to have the influence of historical heritage to deal with.”

But a predisposition to love English football is only one of a bundle of criteria which determine rights value. According to Lines, the level of interest in football has to be seen alongside national economic conditions the level of media competition in individual markets; not simply between broadcasters but between different media platforms and emerging technologies.

“The reason that territories such and Hong Kong and Singapore are so competitive is a combination of all these factors,” Lines explains.

“They are crazy about English football, they are good markets economically, the broadcast market is extremely competitive and there are powerful emerging technologies.”

These then are the factors which determine the hard value of the Premier League’s media rights. But the sales strategy is determined by another set of criteria.
.
“We are in a different position to some other governing bodies,” explained Phil Lines.

“The Olympics and FIFA World Cup are listed events (in many territories) which makes an enormous difference to them. Then if you look at The Champions League, from its very birth it was always based partly on advertising funding. As a result they’ve always had the twin ambition of maximizing rights fees and getting maximum exposure for the competition and the sponsors.

“We have always been openly going out there to maximize revenue. The clubs have always had the choice of whether we focus on exposure or revenue and they’ve always gone for the revenue model. Therefore we are prepared to take a chance on emerging technologies, perhaps more so than other governing bodies can. We’ll also, to a degree, take a smaller exposure if the rights fee justifies doing so.”

FORWARD STEPS

The Premier League’s approach to rights sales is pragmatically focused on serving the needs of its members. In fact, it’s something of a surprise to be reminded that the current round of negotiations is only the second to be conducted in house. Overseas sales had previously been handled by a consortium of News Corp, Octagon CSI and Sport Five with TWI handling production and distribution.

But the lessons learned since Lines and his team conducted their first sales round three years ago have been filtered into the strategy which had guided the current round.

“Last time we reached the conclusion we had sliced up the cake as thinly as it could be sliced in terms of the numbers of different packages for different technologies. We recognised that media convergence, which had been talked about since before the start of this century, was finally happening and we took that into account as we started to put that cake back together again,” Lines said.

“We realised that we didn’t want to continue to sell by different media platforms because we felt there was a clear overlap between them in many territories. It’s the old argument about whether you’re talking about a mobile phone on which you can seen television or a portable television on which you can make a phone call. The question was whether we were going to spend the next few years with our lawyers handling counter-claims or were we going to put that responsibility back to our licensees.

“That’s what we decided to do because we felt that, ultimately, we had a bunch of media groups out there who are increasingly multi-platform groups who wanted to buy our rights exclusively for their territory. They didn’t want to have to keep coming back to buy different rights. They could get more value if they were able to buy something which gave them the comfort of exclusivity.”

Consequently, in the most recent round, rights have simply been split into live (to include all long-form broadcast including repeats and delayed) and highlights.

“That has been greatly appreciated in the market and has helped us to get to these levels of revenue. The media groups could buy all they needed in one basket rather than buying one thing and taking the risk they’d lose out on something else they needed,” Lines said.

“Selling the rights ourselves has helped us establish close relationships with broadcasters who know that when they buy they have exclusivity and there will be no hiccups. They’re not going to find that there’s someone else saying they own the rights or that they get a call telling them that a particular game is not available because one of the parties hasn’t signed up to the deal.

“We also owe a lot to out host broadcasters for the production quality. It’s a very well produced service and a state of the art media operation delivered by IMG and SportEV.”

Given the success of the latest round of rights sales, the big question has to be whether it can be repeated next time around. Lines is sensibly cautious, but refers the question to the response to the previous sales period which netted around $500 million

“There were people then who said we’d never do it again while, in fact, we’ve clearly surpassed that percentage growth. As a result its better to never say never,” Lines said.

BRIGHT SPOTS

While it may be unrealistic to forecast exponential growth in every territory, Lines believes there are a number of bright spots where significant uplift can be achieved.

Among them is Africa where sales to individual territories have helped tapped the value and extend the audience significantly.

“We’ve put a lot into changing the way we sell in Africa and it is no longer possible to buy the entire continent. We’ve broken up the market.

“That’s enabled us to open up the market to lower priced pay TV offerings which means that the size of the viewing audience should grow dramatically. Nigeria is a big market for us now but I think you’ll see many of the sub Saharan countries growing their media operations as they increasingly understand how they can best monetise the rights.”

The Sub Continent provides other opportunities. “We have been very pleased with the growth of rights value which is a reflection of the growing interest in football,” he said.

“Cricket is still far and away the number one sport, but in a country which is economically growing so quickly, if you can become the second biggest sports it is still a lucrative market.

“It is the same for us in the United States. We don’t imagine we can overtake the top American sports but we can try to establish ourselves in a strong position. I would be disappointed if our rights didn’t continue to grow in quite big steps in both India and the States.”

As a sports brand, The Premier League benefits from the shared ambitions of the league and its constituent clubs, most of which have declared their ambition to build their overseas fan bases.

“In many ways it’s an ideal situation,” says Lines.

“Every time the clubs go on tour they are, effectively, evangelists for The Premier League itself. We are also fortunate that when media groups pay us significant rights fees they have an interest in promoting those rights to make them work. That often means promoting across other media – including newspapers and magazines – owned by individual groups and we spend a lot of time approving promotional ideas.”

Among the criteria the Premier League applies to these promotions is a requirement that, in any campaign, at least four different clubs are featured. That is designed to dilute the natural focus on England’s Big Four of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool and extend it to others. It’s a strategy that seems to be working.

Despite unease in the UK that the Premier League is becoming less interesting because of the domination of a handful of club, Lines says there’s no evidence that view is in any way shared abroad.

“We’ve seen no evidence of any decline or interest….in fact it’s quite the reverse,” he said.

“You can have a conversation with people in cities around the world who will not only talk about Manchester United and Chelsea but about Bolton, Fulham and the others. That is partly because we have been able to attract so much talent from so many countries and that talent is fairly evenly distributed throughout the Premier League. For example, you’ll find tremendous interest in Bolton in some of the African countries because they have high quality African players.”

But while Lines and his colleagues are naturally upbeat about the latest sales results there are issues to be dealt with. Key among these is piracy. Although neither the size of the ‘grey’ audience for Premier League broadcasts nor the amount of revenue lost are known, the issues of fake and illegal encryption cards and Internet distribution of broadcast feeds are close to the top of the League’s agenda. But copyright issues raised by the emergence of ‘social media’ including YouTube and similar sites are also being targeted hard.

“Piracy is probably one of the biggest challenges we face over the next 10 years and anybody who believes that they can run a media outlet, cannot afford to be complacent about what is on their platform. If that includes our content we will be taking severe action,” Lines explained.

“All our broadcasters are in this together. They all have problems of people operating illegally in their area, usually using a signal from another broadcaster. There is great and growing cooperation because it is everybody’s interests to beat piracy.”

“Everybody points to the Internet as a big problem. They are right in so much as it is a distribution channel that can enable people to watch something they shouldn’t be able to see. However, that problem largely stems from television, because as television increasingly becomes digital, the signal – when encrypted once - can be onward distributed in other ways. If we did everything in an IPTV fashion we could put digital rights management on it which means that you can’t do that.

“In 10 years time it may well be that there’s very little live football on conventional television because we may want to move more and more to a controllable broadband and IPTV market.”

But for the time being Lines can reflect on past success and building for the future.

“Of course there are some things that are simply not within our control such as the economic conditions and competition between media groups.

“But we can focus on continuing to deliver a first class product and to grow the quality of that offering. We are constantly looking to offer ways to offer more to people who buy our rights and to add more programming and features. We have a production workshop every summer with our broadcasters and have introduced a raft of new features over the last three years which have been welcomed. We are constantly looking for ways to keep our broadcast partners happy with what they’re getting from us and so that they need less from anybody else.”

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
MLB – Online Field Of Dreams

Barry Wilner on Major League Baseball’s new improved TV deals and its innovative online presence.

When you have 30 teams playing 162 games a season, your TV presence is enormous. Major League Baseball's tentacles enwrap three networks in the US, three more in Canada, and coverage is available in 223 countries and 13 languages.

ESPN, Fox and Turner Broadcasting are the national US baseball broadcasters, while every club also has local deals. Some, including the Yankees and Mets in New York, have their own regional sports networks for matches not shown nationally.

In keeping with the tradition of Monday night sports, ESPN has a package of games on those evenings as part of its eight-year, $2.368 billion deal that began last season. When the NFL kicks off in September, however, it takes precedence on ESPN over all sports, even baseball. ESPN also has exclusive Sunday night contests until 2013.

MLB’s present contract is a vast improvement over the $815 million deal it previously had with ESPN, an agreement that came after settlement of a lawsuit. Negotiations for the present deal were far more amicable.

Baseball collects an average of $296 million a year from ESPN, with the highest payouts scheduled for 2011 ($308.5 million), 2012 and 2013 ($306 million each).

ESPN also televises several games on opening day in April and can broadcast up to 80 games per season.

“You worry about over-saturation, but this is a sport that its fans follow and live on a day-by-day basis,” commissioner Bud Selig has said. “I do not worry that this will produce a glut.”

ESPN also owns radio rights under a six-year deal worth an average of $11 million a year. It has Internet and new media rights for six years at a cost of about $30 million a year. XM has satellite radio rights in an 11-year contract worth $60 million a season.

“We've acquired wide-ranging rights to fuel all of the multimedia business of ESPN that today number over a dozen and will continue to grow,” ESPN president George Bodenheimer said.

The other major cable carrier is Turner's TBS, which paid just over $300 million for a package of postseason contests. TBS will televise the National League Championship Series, the last step before the World Series, in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013, and the ALCS in 2008, 2010 and 2012.

TBS also gets any tiebreaker games at the end of the regular season to get into the playoffs, and first-round postseason matches. Beginning in 2008, TBS gets 26 Sunday afternoon games. This year, it will continue with its traditional baseball fare: Atlanta Braves games.

Fox has the World Series - not nearly the ratings draw of the NFL playoffs or Super Bowl - but a plus for the network's prestige. It also has whichever league championship series TBS does not carry until 2013, and the midseason All-Star game. For that, and an expansion of its Saturday afternoon game of the week coverage from 18 games to 26, Fox is paying about $2.7 billion, averaging $38.5 million a year.

While ESPN has daily highlights shows, Fox carries the popular ‘This Week in Baseball’ anthology.

“Baseball is as popular today as ever, with new young stars and veteran players performing before hundreds of millions of fans in-person and on TV each year,” said Fox Networks Group President/CEO Tony Vinciquerra.

And MLB has also shown itself to be the most progressive of the US Major Leagues when it comes to reaching an audience over the Internet. From 2004, it has been streaming MLB games live and on-demand via its MLB.TV arm with a vast archive of every game played over the last couple of seasons as well as classic games dating back to the 1950s. MLB.com is the only sports-related and owned site to be mentioned in the same breath as YouTube, Yahoo and MySpace in terms of the number of clips served up.

And MLB also has plans for its own cable channel, similar to NFL Network, something Selig doesn't consider “in any way, shape or form as competitive. I regard it as an additional complement to everything else we've done.”

Through deals with Japanese and European channels, MLB has increased awareness of the game abroad. Of course, Japan has already made baseball its sport of choice, and three Japanese networks handle over-the-air MLB contests, with more than 200 games are available on satellite.

An agreement with North American Sports Network, now owned by ESPN, brings games across Europe. NASN, the lone European channel dedicated to North American sports, has exclusive cable and satellite rights for nearly 300 games, from spring training through the World Series.

THE MLB SKINNY

BROADCASTER/TYPE/DURATION/FEE P.A

ESPN/CABLE/2007-13/$296m
TBS/CABLE/2007-13/$42.9m
FOX/NETWORK/2007-13/$38.5m
ESPN RADIO/RADIO/2006-10/$11m
XM/RADIO/2005-2015/$59m
MLB.COM/Internet

Outdoor Business
March, 2007
E-Commerce: Measuring Conversion Success

An e-commerce site with 6 to 9 percent of its visitors making purchases can be considered a success, according to conversion experts. With an industry standard hovering around 1 to 2 percent, most sites are failing to capture all the business they can have. Once a company makes a commitment to boost its conversion rate, there are several key areas to monitor that measure whether such efforts are successful.

Conversion Rate

This is the percentage of visitors that turn into a lead, sale or some other desired outcome. A retail site is frequently considered a success when its purchase conversion is in the high-single-digits, but for lead generation sites, numbers in the high-teens are considered good. An average retail site is converting about 1 to 2 percent of visitors, and an average lead generation site is doing 5 to 6 percent.

Keep in mind that meaningful conversion data from e-commerce businesses are difficult to attain, and the aforementioned averages are considered general guides. Comparisons are difficult because sites offer such distinctive products and services, and many companies define conversion differently. It’s possible that circumstances could generate a conversion rate pushing 50 percent, depending upon the product and how conversion is measured.

How can you calculate a purchase conversion rate? It’s simple. Using your site’s analytics package, locate the number of unique visitors during a given period and divide that by the number of sales transactions during the same period. If you are 2 percent or less, the good news is that you have plenty of room to grow your business.

Increasing the number of transactions by one or two percentage points can have a substantial impact on your company’s bottom line. If you have 10,000 unique visitors per month and you’re generating 100 sales transactions per month (1 percent) with an average sale of $90, boosting your site’s purchase conversion rate one percentage point generates an additional $108,000 annually. Getting your conversion rate to 5 percent increases sales by $432,000 annually, so it’s easy to see why improving a conversion rate is so critical.

Now you’re ready for the next question: How much are you willing to invest to generate several hundred thousand dollars more each year?

Regarding conversion-rate management, it is important to know that you’ve already done a significant amount of the work in getting people to your site. The traffic is there. You simply need to invest in the strategies and tools necessary to convert visitors into customers.

Home Page Abandonment Rate

This is the percentage of people that exit your site upon landing at the home page. “Attracting the wrong types of customers, or [having] problems with a home page often results in a home-page-abandonment rate of 25 percent or more,” notes Practical eCommerce columnist and conversion expert Mat Greenfield.

Bryan Eisenberg, co-founder of Future Now Inc., notes that e-commerce businesses have a short time to keep a shopper’s attention. “About 10 percent of visitors leave a site after the first click, but many of these visitors constitute either accidental traffic or are unqualified buyers. You probably wouldn’t have converted them anyway,” says Eisenberg. An astounding 55 percent of visitors, however, have dropped off after the second click, and 80 percent of the visitors have departed after the third click. A well-constructed site with strategically placed calls-to-action can help address site abandonment issues.

Cost Per Sale

Divide the advertising costs by the amount of sales to calculate the average cost per sale. What should your average number be? There’s no set answer.

According to Kevin Gold at Enhanced Concepts, Inc., e-commerce owners must simply determine how much a customer is worth to their companies for a single transaction, as well as the potential lifetime value of a customer. “Just set an objective and make it a financial objective,” instructs Gold. “Work toward meeting that objective. Each site’s goals may differ so much that it’s very complicated to compare conversion rates.”

Gold adds that successfully managing the cost-per-sale component could pay significant dividends for the business owner. “Many business owners don’t know their cost-per-action or cost-per-lead,” he says. “It’s astounding how many don’t know. When talking about a customer’s lifetime value, you may take loss in front [to get the customer], but if you can keep him, he’s worth a lot. A pay-per-click keyword costing $8 may be expensive, but if you keep the customer it attracts, you get that back in spades.”

A basic analytics package can gather data to help an e-commerce site measure conversion rates and site abandonment. It’s important to have an analytics tool that shows a customer’s individual activity so you can learn how the visitor becomes engaged or disengaged during the buying process.

In the end, however, measuring success is simple. “You have to view your site as a one-shot deal,” says Greenfield. “People visit and they either make a purchase or they don’t.”

Practical eCommerce (practicalecommerce.com) is a monthly magazine targeted to small-business owners that want to build their online presence.

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
Net Crackdown

Chris Britcher on the new weapon to help crackdown on illegal peer-to-peer live streaming of sports events.

The on-going battle in cyberspace over illegal live streaming of top sporting events has stepped up a notch. Internet security firm Netintelligence (Ni) has joined the battleground with a weapon which promises to block offending sites by the Internet provider.

Widespread broadband take up has achieved huge benefits and revenue-generating potential for sports bodies, but with the pluses have come the minuses, principally the unwanted explosion in peer-to-peer streaming of live content, taken from legitimate broadcasts elsewhere in the world and beamed straight to the desktop PCs of fans around the globe.

Where once it was goal clips or the latest touchdown which irritated legitimate rights-holders, today it is live streaming via peer-to-peer networks - highlighted in these pages in the past - which most enrage.

Often emanating from the Far East - and especially from China - the sites circumnavigate strict guidelines to allow access to the top events. For example, by downloading a piece of free software, fans in the UK can log-on and access live Premier League football at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon - traditionally a time slot in which it is forbidden to broadcast coverage domestically in order to protect attendances.

Rights-holders are not only aghast at having global restrictions flouted, but domestic subscribers of content often find themselves missing out on potential subscribers as desperate fans dip their toes in the murky online waters rather than shelling out for legitimate subs packages.

UK firm NetResult has been a forerunner in clamping down on such sites with the fast threat of legal action providing a service for the likes of the IOC, Formula One Management, FIFA and UEFA, amongst many.

Enter Netintelligence (Ni) with its solution, designed to allow Internet service providers to block certain sites known to specialise in such content. And what’s more, the user will be unaware they have been prevented from accessing the site, with an error message appearing when they try to access the location in question.

Netintelligence’s Cloud Clean is a network-based system which prevents access to illegal sites which is already working to clampdown on the spread of paedophilic material online.

The software manages web addresses supplied by Controlled Content Providers (CCPs), which could be a law enforcement agency, a media rights or copyright owner, or another licensed provider of illegal website addresses, such as the Internet Watch Foundation.

Phil Worms, director of products and marketing at Netintelligence, explains, “media rights owning companies are struggling to contain these illegal websites, and many have had to bring in specialist companies whose sole job is to find these sites.”

“We can take the URLs of these sites and add them to our database, so that when someone tries to view a Premier League match illegally via a website, or access paedophilic material, all they see is an error message saying 'website not found'.

“This is a problem which isn't going to go away easily, because when one site is shut down several more spring up in its place. Television companies are spending a fortune in legal bills to tackle these sites, but with Ni Cloud Clean installed in the network it is possible to simply block access to anyone attempting to visit a particular site.

“Large corporations can also use the application to ensure their employees don't deliberately or accidentally access illegal content on the web. As well as the obvious copyright protection benefits to media companies, the software provides peace of mind to companies who don't want to worry about their employees running into legal difficulties through using the Internet at work.

“Whilst I understand that this system may raise concerns about personal choice and censorship, our view is simple; ‘if it’s illegal it’s illegal’. With the many of the media companies becoming Internet service providers in their own right, BSkyB, for example, it makes sense for them to protect both their end users and their intellectual property at the same time.”

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
NFL – The Sports Powerhouse

Barry Wilner on the all consuming, ever-expanding power of the National Football League.

‘American Idol’ might be all the rage on US television for nearly half the year, but has anyone noticed the timing of the show? It airs, January-May, meaning ‘Idol’ doesn't come around until the NFL's regular season is done, just another indication of the power of professional football in America.

For the 2006 season, the NFL's ratings increased under its new TV contracts, which switched Sunday night prime-time games from cable's ESPN to free-to-air broadcaster NBC and placed the Monday night franchise on ESPN instead of ABC. Fox kept the NFC contests and CBS maintained the AFC.

Audiences were up 4 per cent on free-to-air (NBC, CBS and Fox), with an average of 16.3 million viewers, while cable ratings, boosted by taking over the Monday night programming, soared 41 per cent to 12.3 million viewers.

Add in the newcomer, the league's very own NFL Network (4.1 million viewers), and it was a prosperous season for anyone involved in broadcasting pro football.

While ESPN by far had the biggest upgrade in ratings, NBC was up 7 percent over the previous year's Sunday package, Fox improved 5 per cent while boasting many of the nation's major markets, and CBS was up 1 per cent.

“We have a unique commitment to broadcast television, with all of our games televised on free over-the-air TV. We are the only sports league that does that,” commissioner Roger Goodell notes. “Our television policies are working and our audiences are growing.”

In addition, NFL games were top-rated in local markets 80 per cent of the time in 2006.

Of course, the networks are paying grandiose sums for the rights to partner with the NFL.

Each year under contracts that run through 2011, the league is collecting $3.735 billion, giving a total figure of $23.91 billion. That is a 53-per-cent-increase from the $2.44 billion previous package.

For Sunday afternoon games, Fox spends $712.5 million a season, or $4.275 billion overall, up 30 per cent from the $550 million per year in the deal that ended in 2005.

CBS spends $622.5 million per year (smaller markets, remember) and $3.735 billion overall, which is an increase of 24 per cent from its $500 million a year in the former deal.

The league was so eager to get yet another free to-air entity involved in broadcasting that it accepted the same amount ESPN was paying for the Sunday night package, $600 million per year. The deal with NBC, which dropped out of NFL coverage in 1997, is also for six years and worth $3.6 billion.

NBC was so desperate to get hooked up with the NFL again that it dropped its NASCAR coverage when the 2006 stock car season concluded.

The biggest spender though, was ESPN/ABC, which agreed a deal for games only for its cable arm. The cost: a whopping $8.8 billion for the showcase Monday night package until 2013, a total of $1.1 billion a season. That was a 100 per cent increase from the $550 million ABC paid in the prior deal.

Add in the satellite package with DirecTV called Sunday Ticket for which viewers can purchase every game except those being televised locally on a Sunday afternoon, and the NFL gains another $700 million per year until 2010, a $3.5 billion total and a 75-per-cent-increase from the previous deal.

Are these numbers making your head spin?

The league also has an eight-game late-season package for Thursday or Saturday nights that it kept for its own network, causing something of an uproar. NFL Network is available on DirecTV, but several major cable distributors have refused to carry it on anything but a premium tier. The NFL wants it as part of the regular sports package, which cable companies say would be unprofitable for them.

Of course, when regular-season games are unavailable to the masses, it makes NFL Network more desirable to fans. And they clamour for their cable systems to make it available.

Abroad, NFL games are broadcast in 235 countries and territories.

While the NFL is the clear king of sports on television, it also is trying to be a trailblazer in new media. It has a seven-year deal with Sirius Satellite Radio that also includes equity. NFL.com is the in-house website, with worldwide distribution and increasing popularity in non-English-speaking nations, most notably Germany, Japan and Mexico. The league has a five-year deal with Sprint worth $600 million for wireless content, it streams games internationally through Yahoo, and regular-season highlights are available on Apple's iTunes.

“We will continue to stay at the forefront of technology and explore ways to deliver the NFL to our fans with partners such as Sprint, Yahoo and Apple, with highlight packages that they can access whenever and wherever they want,” Goodell says.

THE NFL SKINNY

BROADCASTER/TYPE/DURATION/FEE P.A

ESPN/CABLE/2006-13/$1.1bn
FOX/NETWORK/2006-11/$712.5m
CBS/NETWORK/2006-11/$622.5m
NBC/NETWORK/2006-11/$600m
DIRECTV/SATELLITE/2006-10/$700m

NFL NETWORK/CABLE-SAT
SIRIUS/RADIO/2004-10/$31.4m
SPRINT/MOBILE/2005-09/ $120m
NFL.COM/INTERNET

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
NHL – Leading The YouTube Party

Struggling for visibility on US TV, the NHL is leading the YouTube revolution.

In the US, finding NHL broadcasts can be as difficult as getting a suntan in Buffalo in February.

In Canada, it's still a viewing staple.

The NHL is the only true bi-national team sport in America. Baseball and basketball each have just one franchise in the Great White North. The NFL has none.

But pro hockey boasts six Canadian franchises: Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. The league has television agreements with the over-the-air Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), cable's Rogers Sportsnet, and The Sports Network (TSN), which show games regularly, highlighted by CBC's most famous programme, sports or otherwise ‘Hockey Night in Canada,’ a tradition since 1952.

CBC has an 81-game schedule, 19 more than last season, with 30 games broadcast in high-definition. It also does the playoffs and All-Star game and is spending about C$65 million per season.

TSN has a 69-game, regular-season coverage package - 39 high-definition contests - and selected games from the first three rounds of the playoffs.

Both of those deals expire after this season and CBC could wind up spending more than C$100 million a year for either four or five seasons, while TSN could go as high as C$40 million for its new contract. TSN has also shown interest in expanding its presence, as has Rogers Sportsnet.

While Canadians always know where to go for their national and regional hockey broadcasts, Americans aren't so fortunate.

Versus, formerly the Outdoor Life Network and then OLN, is owned by communications giant Comcast. The company hopes to make Versus the centerpiece of a sports empire that can compete with ESPN and Fox Sports Net.

But while Versus is available in more than 72 million households, that's still 20 million fewer than ESPN and its sister stations.

Comcast is paying $135 million for two years of NHL coverage, with most games played on Monday or Tuesday nights. Versus also has the All-Star game, which drew a minuscule 0.7 rating, a 76 per cent drop from the previous game in 2004. Versus gets most of the playoffs, as well, although NBC handles a portion of the Stanley Cup finals.

With the ratings getting iced, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is preaching patience and perspective.

“The other thing to keep in mind is that I think two-thirds of our clubs, locally, saw either a leveling or up-pick in their ratings,” he said. “And ... when you look at the trends in broadcasting, while a lot of sports were up last year as opposed to the prior year, most were down compared to two years ago, which is the comparison that we had to use for our ratings because we had a year off. So when you look at all the factors and you look at what was going on in sports television in general, we were pretty consistent with what was going on overall.”

However, as columnist Jim Litke of The Associated Press points out, “one measure of how daunting it's become to sell hockey to an American audience is how much trouble any but the most devoted puckheads will have just tuning in.”

Household ratings are up 5 per cent, but only to 0.21. So the league prefers pointing to increases in Versus viewing in specific markets. Buffalo is up a phenomenal 1072 per cent because the Sabres have been so exciting and such winners this season. Audiences in Chicago, Miami and Phoenix have improved by at least 100 per cent.

NBC could help rescue the NHL with its contract calling for a series of weekend afternoon games once the NFL and college football are done. NBC also does the majority of the finals.

But the league is in a profit-sharing agreement with NBC with no rights fees involved. NBC previously had a similar deal with Arena Football, but opted out when it bought NFL Sunday night games.

A deal with DirecTV and some digital cable companies has made available Center Ice, the league's subscription plan, and the number of subscriptions is up 10 per cent this season.

One area where the NHL is a pioneer is in streaming video through YouTube; the NHL channel, NHLTube, is one of the most viewed and subscribed options (it had 2,540 subscribers within a week) and other sports almost immediately looked into similar arrangements when they saw the NHL's success. The two parties share the ad revenue.

THE NHL SKINNY

BROADCASTER/TYPE/DURATION/FEE P.A

NBC/NETWORK/2005-06/NO FEE
VERSUS/CABLE/2005/06-2006/07/$67.5m
YOUTUBE/INTERNET

Sport And Technology
March, 2007
Q&A: Andrew Thompson, Head Of Sport, Channel 4

This month, S&T talks to Andrew Thompson, Head of Sport for UK free-to-air commercial broadcaster Channel 4. Thompson was appointed to the position in February 2006. Prior to that, Thompson had been Head of New Media Development and Sports News at the BBC since 2001. In the latter role he was responsible for interactive TV, including the lauded coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournaments, and the multi-award-winning BBC Sports website.

Please describe your role and responsibilities

“I have been Head of Sport at Channel 4 for just over a year and I am responsible for the channel’s 650 plus hours of sports output per year, as well as building a multiplatform base. Horseracing is our biggest sport thanks to our groundbreaking three-year deal with Racing UK, which will give us 80 days of live racing on the channel. Winter Sports are our next biggest offering, such as World Cup Skiing. We have a whole series of other sports and we try to be as innovative as possible.”

What’s your strategy for acquiring sports television rights? Can you compete with the larger budgets of some of your industry peers?

“We can compete – and have done – for premium sports rights. We look at every tender as they emerge and then assess whether we are going to bid for them. We don’t want second or third division rights – we want quality coverage – and therefore we look at the major ones as and when they come up. We are certainly very much part of the game when it comes to looking at crown jewel events. We are also looking constantly at new sports and formats and keeping coverage fresh. For example, we plan this year to show The Red Bull Air Race World Series which is a global air racing event dubbed 'The F1 of the skies' at a peak Saturday afternoon slot rather than the previous late night showing. We are also covering a series of triathlons which are experiencing growing interest. We are able to experiment with our coverage of sports that are fairly new to television. Our poker programming is also on the up. Channel 4 is the channel that first brought poker to television in the UK, and look at it now.”

What are you doing at Channel 4 in terms of sport and digital media?

“We’re reviewing all that at the moment. The sports website at the BBC is extremely well-funded whereas we have a tiny operation at Channel 4 in comparison. What we need to do is evaluate our new media proposition and see what its relationship is with our terrestrial offerings. Our racing deal in particular has enabled us to develop a strong web presence through really looking at the elements that make racing work for audiences. What you offer online for racing is extremely important. There’s a demand in this sport in particular for archive in order to facilitate betting, as well as information during the actual races. We are working with Racing UK to develop an exciting new web proposition.” (Cheltenham Festival is pictured right courtesy of Getty Images Sport and photographed by Adrian Dennis).

How does your role at Channel 4 differ to your time at the BBC?

“I had a wonderful time at the BBC, but it is a different environment at Channel 4 and I feel liberated here. I can move ideas along faster. But most significantly I have been embedded in the commercial world at C4 – and have learnt a huge amount about raising money, as well as spending it.

What’s next for sport and new media in your opinion?

“Our online VOD service has been launched and has been extremely well-received. None of us can afford to sit back and not worry about how the web is developing – it is such a movable feast. We all need to think about how it is evolving and how we can take part in that world. Anyone who says they know what the next big thing is don’t really do. Seven or eight years ago we were all quite evangelical about the speed of change in terms of consumption of new technologies. Now, there is a certain speed of change, but always at a slower pace than we expect! At Channel 4 we are working through how traditional media fits with new media. The biggest single change has been ease of access for the consumer – allowing them to reach their sport wherever and whenever they want it.”

What about other technology at Channel 4?

“Camera techniques and technology have developed year on year and get better all the time. We are involved in high-definition discussions as a channel. I am a big fan of HD, but that’s another example of technology moving slower that we all expected.”

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
Reaching The Masses

With 22 Trackside Cameras, 60 On Board Cameras and a Helicopter Gyrocam MotoGP provides some of the most exciting and cutting edge coverage in sports TV to its broadcast partners.

And it is Dorna Sports itself that produces the international programme feed in its entirety before distributing it to TV partners in 207 countries. Last year, MotoGP was watched by a cumulative total of 5,162 million TV viewers. An average of 142 million spectators watched live broadcasts, with a total average audience per Grand Prix of 311 million viewers. The numbers make your head spin.

And these impressive figures are largely down to the fact that Dorna, much like its Formula One counterparts, has always placed a premium on getting free-to-air coverage.

Manel Arroyo, Dorna’s head of broadcast operations explains, “our TV strategy is very broad-based. It is very much about getting as much free to air coverage as possible and agreeing deals that help popularise MotoGP further and allow us to work with strategic partners that are interested in growing our product. Putting MotoGP on free-to-air TV means new fans will come. This means that we sometimes turn down money from pay-TV in order to get greater exposure. We are also putting a lot of work into our website coverage.”

One major TV deal agreed for this year was in Spain, a very important market for MotoGP. Dorna agreed a new five-year deal, from 2007-2011, with public-service broadcaster TVE, one of its long-term partners. Because of competition in the Spanish market there was a big increase in fees. Mediaset in Italy, TVE in Spain and BBC in the UK, have all also increased their coverage significantly.

And at the time SportBusiness went to press, Dorna was also on the verge of signing another important deal in the US, with increased free-to-air coverage. Instead of just the US Grand Prix being on free-to-air TV with FOX this year, Dorna has a deal lined up with CBS for three Grand Prix, Catalunya, Holland and Germany. It also renewed a deal with Speed Channel for cable coverage.

Arroyo says that the aim is always to “the best possible distribution for MotoGP rather than targeting specific markets,” although securing an improved deal in such an important breakthrough market as the US does help. “Gaining exposure on free-to-air TV in key markets will certainly help with our aims to expand the series and hopefully can also be very positive in the search for new star riders in MotoGP for the future.”

And Arroyo explains the key to his strategy is to grow “step by step” particularly in newer markets. “Our deals in established markets tend to be longer-term, but in countries where we are starting to develop the sport, we often sign one-year deals so we can assess and evaluate progress each year and build the sport up further.”

One key broadcast partnership is a pan-European deal with Eurosport, for which MotoGP is one of its highest rating sports, with 3-4 per cent share for some races.

While in some of the big European markets like Germany, Dorna is still working hard to increase the ratings. “In certain markets like Germany where lots of sports are competing for TV coverage and attention TV sales can depend much on the success of national stars and this is as true of motorcycling as of tennis or ski jumping. It is true that we perhaps need to add a little more to get the ratings. MotoGP is a compelling and competitive series, but we need national heroes to really get a breakthrough. The MotoGP academy is our investment in this.”

The final and going forward perhaps key plank in Dorna’s TV strategy concerns its website coverage. At present it offers live coverage of all races and has also increased other audiovisual content available online. It is available to view for a small fee.

Arroyo explains, “we have put it on the premium area of the website, in order to ensure it is the best quality coverage we can provide. Advertisers are slowly getting interested in online operations, but are not yet there in big numbers, so at the moment the revenue model is subscription. But the aim ultimately is to capitalise on MotoGP’s sizeable fan base and exploit it through Internet advertising.” Figures for the website at the mid-point of last season, in August, show that the website got a total of over two million unique visits.

Total TV Viewing in Spain/Italy
Spain (TVE)/Italy (Italia 1)

2005/2006/2005/2006
38.005/42.015/92.951/101.436
na/11%/na/9%

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
Sportsman Media Group

The Sportsman Media Group is the exclusive distributor - on behalf of bwin interactive entertainment AG - of all worldwide media rights (excluding Germany) of the Bundesliga (German football league) for the season 2006/07 through 2008/09.

The Sportsman Media Group is also the exclusive television rights acquisition agency for Germany’s new pay-TV platform arena.tv and the worldwide online gaming entertainment provider bwin for all its live streaming Internet content.

FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE GYMNASTIQUE

The FIG (F�d�ration Internationale de Gymnastique handles television rights packages, Internet and webcasting right for Men's Artistic Gymnastics, Women's Artistic Gymnastics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Aerobic Gymnastics, Trampoline & Tumbling Gymnastics, Acrobatic Gymnastics and Gymnastics for All. FIG offers Television rights packages 2005 - 2008 for its official World Championships and World Cup Finals, representing each year an average of 25.5 hours live and 11 hours highlights TV productions.

TELETRAX

Teletrax’s broadcast intelligence service provides sports rights holders, distributors and broadcasters with crucial information on programming, such as where and when video content was aired, on a global scale. By using Teletrax, organisations are able to understand usage preferences of broadcasters which will allow them to tailor offerings if needed, provide precise details of airing coverage to sponsors, and evaluate ROI of their video assets.

IEC

IEC in Sports will be at Sportel in Miami with a portfolio of 2,500 hours of sports programming, including its recently launched magazine show, Road to Beijing. Other key components of the agency’s portfolio will include Swatch-FIVB World Tour and Beach Volleyball World Championships, FIVB World Grand Prix and FIVB World Cups, ATP and WTA Tour Tennis, Football’s Portuguese Superliga, leading IAAF Grand Prix Athletics Events, BWF Super Series Badminton, ITTF Pro Tour Table Tennis, FINA Swimming World Cup Swimming and FIG World Cup Gymnastics. The company is also targeting new IPTV platforms with both linear programming and VOD products that are put together at its Headquarters in Stockholm. IEC will send 10 of its leading executives to the Market in Florida, where it will once again be a prominent Exhibitor.

SPORTS INC

Sports Inc, based in New Zealand, produces an international golf magazine series, The Golf Club, that plays 52 weeks of the year in the United Kingdom, Japan, Middle East, South Africa, South America, Australia and Asia reaching over 70 million subscribers in over 120 countries each week. Sports Inc recently launched a rugby series, Rugby Focus, that is currently playing in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

ESPN

ESPN International is one of the largest vendors of sports programming. Attending the Sportel America market will be ESPN International's regional sales teams from South America, Asia and Europe, all headed by Murray Barnett, senior director of sales. Key properties at this year's Sportel America event are NASCAR and IndyCar, two of the top North American motorsport series; X Games, the leading action sports franchise; Major League Soccer (soon to feature the talents of David Beckham!)' and top boxing action. Other featured programming includes the World Series of Poker, NCAA college sports and Ironman World Championship

FIBA

The FIBA Television Department will be represented at Sportel America by Stephanie Mignot and Paul Stimpson. The FIBA TV Department is now actively acquiring partners for the 2007-2011 FIBA package. The events include World and Continental Championships for Men, Women and Juniors. All TV and New Media rights are available for utilisation.

PREMIUM TV

Premium TV is a leading digital rights specialist, working on behalf of major entertainment and sports brands to maximise returns from their content over broadband, mobile and other emerging platforms.

The company aims to generate more revenue for clients across digital platforms by combining cutting-edge technology platform with over six years’ experience of monetising content, using broadband and mobile subscription and PPV products, advertising/sponsorship, syndication via video portals, MNO’s, ISPs and IPTV platforms, merchandising, betting and UGC

TOTAL SPORTS ASIA

Total Sports Asia will be at Sportel America to promote a line-up which includes the US Open Tennis, WWE programming, the most important South American Soccer tournaments, Masters Football, AVP Beach Volleyball, German & British Touring Car Championship, the top Badminton World Federation Events and the Superbike World Championship. TSA – Asia’s leading sports marketing agency offers TV, mobile content, licensing, events and sponsorship opportunities for these and many more properties.

TOPSPORTS VENTURES

TopSports, founded in 1999, is a media and marketing company working in the forefront of the increasingly convergent world of live sports, advertising, TV, the Internet and mobile devices.

The company has a live sport sports broadcast platform under the brand of Esporte Interativo, in two major FTA air television networks in Brazil. In January they launched TV Esporte Interivo, the first FTA channel dedicated exclusively to sports (24/7), reaching 18 million households and with average audiences above 450.000 households.

REDBEE MEDIA

Piero is a revolutionary new graphics system that has added a whole new dimension to sports analysis. It allows events such as offsides to be viewed from the best possible angle – even if the play was never captured by a camera from this perspective. This enables broadcasters to better analyse incidents both during live games and from archive footage.

It uses an innovative image analysis method to create automatically a ‘live’ 3D model of the action. Camera movement is measured by tracking the pitch lines, so mechanical camera tracking heads are not needed. It is already being used by the BBC and ITV in the UK, SkyItalia, Al Jazeera, Hong Kong Cable, ITI Neovision in Poland and TV Globo in Brazil.

MATCHROOM SPORT

Matchroom Sport is a leading producer of a range of world class sports events and our innovative approach allows us to offer broadcasters and other content providers high quality programming that can be tailored to their needs.

The company’s knowledge of the marketplace and in-house expertise allow us to create events in formats that meet broadcasters' scheduling needs and deliver audiences.

Working in the sports of pool, snooker, boxing, poker, fishing, tenpin bowling, golf and darts, Matchroom offers compelling live coverage or fast delivery on tape delay shows all handled by our experienced production and sales teams.'

SFX MEDIA AND EVENTS

SFX Media & Events distributes some of the most recognised sporting events in the world of tennis, marathoning, beach volleyball, softball, and mixed martial arts. Since 2001, SFX Media has teamed with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) to represent, market, and execute all of the international television coverage for the US Open Tennis Championships. SFX Media coordinates two weeks of coverage to 199 countries worldwide for this Grand Slam tournament. SFX Media represents a number of high-profile international clients, including the Boston Athletic Association for the 111th running of the Boston Marathon this April, the World Cup of Softball, the AVP Beach Volleyball Tour, and select ATP tennis tournaments.

GOLF CHANNEL

Golf Channel is available in more than 90 million homes worldwide through cable, satellite and wireless companies. It features a programming schedule that includes more live golf coverage than any other network. In addition to being the exclusive television home of the Nationwide Tour, European Tour and Canadian Tour, Golf Channel is the exclusive cable home of the Champions Tour and televises other competition from the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, USGA, PGA of America, PGA Tour of Australasia and Sunshine Tour of Southern Africa.

STATS LLC

STATS - owned by Associated Press and News Corporation – claims to be the world’s leading sports information provider. STATS offers unparalleled packages of premium sports content, from sports scores and statistics to editorial content and photos. STATS’ sports information solutions are used in numerous business segments: professional teams; sports broadcast production, cable and satellite networks; interactive television; broadband, wireless and Internet; game developers and fantasy sports providers; print media and wire services.

APPARENT GRAVITY MEDIA

Apparent Gravity Media is a leading provider of action/ adventure sports and sports lifestyle programming. With programming in both HDTV and standard definition, AGM currently has eight series on the air around the world representing numerous producers and projects. Networks currently airing AGM programming include EuroSport, Showtime, FUEL, Extreme Channel, Fox Sports Net, Versus/OLN, RUSH HD, Rogers SportsNet and Canada's Xtreme Sports. AGM also distributes the prestigious Action Sports Pro Tour Series.

GREENLIGHT TELEVISION

Lauren Roberts and Jon Quayle will be at SportelMiami promoting the year-round television series Motorsport Mundial and Max Power, our 52/52 motorsport magazine shows which are a joint collaboration between Duke and Greenlight and have been in continuous production for 11 years.

For the first time Greenlight will produce and distribute the Powerboat P1 Championship, continuing Greenlight's motorsport heritage of producing everything from the Isle of Man TT (100 years old in 2007), to the FIA GT Championship, Motocross, Rallying and the American Le Mans Series.

Jon Quayle from Duke will be offering the Duke's extensive catalogue of programming including an in- depth documentary following the Enduro World Champion David Knight during his assault on the 2007 US Enduro championships and a series of review programmes covering a number of World Championships such as Motocross, Rally and Bike GP from 1984 through to 1991

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
The Quiet Revolution

Miriam Sherlock on the growing dynamism that now characterises not only the US sports TV market, but is also permeating those of Canada and Latin America.

The US media market has over the last two years shown renewed strength on the back of increased TV rights deals for the NFL, MLB, golf and NASCAR. And often this prosperity has been founded on the growing shift of major national rights from broadcast to cable.

In US TV, cable is now King and ESPN in particular rules the sports airwaves, maybe not in ratings terms, but certainly in terms of the financial and marketing clout that it wields. ESPN and its cable rivals, Turner and the emerging Versus (previously OLN) are taking a bigger slice of the sports broadcast cake and importantly, are taking a bigger share of the most important sets of rights.

It is quiet revolution that has long been coming. The NBA was the first league to really espouse a significant move over to predominantly cable coverage, in return for the financial returns and marketing commitment. As NBA commissioner David Stern has frequently said, “the distinction between cable and network is being blurred even among the baby-boomer generation that is now 60.”

But now, several of the major leagues are benefiting from cable’s mega-money. The NFL’s new deals this season are worth 33.7 per cent more than the last deals and NASCAR’s new deals a whopping 49 per cent. Why? Because both properties have migrated more inventory, and some of their more important rights, onto cable. Of the NFL’s improved rights fee, 36 per cent of the overall fee now comes from cable (ESPN) against 26 per cent before.

While the broadcast networks will always “pay a premium on properties that garner 10 per cent or more of the American population,” the question according to one analyst, is “will that be enough to hold off cable’s March?”

Neal Pilson, head of Pilson Communications, Inc and former head of CBS Sports, says, “we are definitely seeing a gradual shift of major sports to cable. You can see that in the latest NFL and baseball deals. And in the fact that ESPN is now essentially the sports arm of ABC, negotiating all the network’s deals. This is in part to do with the universality of cable, so sports are no longer losing exposure through cable deals but also to do with financial reality. Cable can pay more since it has the double revenues of subscription and advertising, while broadcast networks have only advertising and limited schedule space.”

But, he says, at present and for the foreseeable future major sports will still want a combination of cable and network coverage. “There are some major events that for prestige and for traditional reasons want to remain on free-to-air network television such as the Super Bowl, the World Series, The Masters, despite there being no legislation requiring such coverage.”

But cable is frequently becoming the exclusive (or majority) home of many of the next-tier of sports like horse racing and tennis and soccer. Horse racing’s Breeder’s Cup for example, one of US horse racing’s biggest races, migrated exclusively to cable in order to secure a bigger rights fee than that on offer from the national networks while channels like Setanta Sports NA and Gol TV are creating important niches for soccer.

But it is the Disney-owned ESPN that is proving itself the real rights powerhouse in the US market. ESPN has always said it is not worried about the prospective competition from other cable networks…and so far, none has risen to a position to be able to take it on head-to-head. A year ago, there was a belief Comcast was going to attempt to build a second national sports network to compete directly against ESPN when through its Versus network, formerly OLN, it acquired NHL rights. But so far this has not given it the platform on which to build a wider portfolio of Major League sports.

One analyst said, “whatever realistic opportunity Comcast had to create a major national sports cable network all but ended when the NFL put is final TV package, the eight late season Thursday/Saturday night games on its own NFL Network. It killed any chance Versus had to get live NFL rights, US sport’s most valuable property, until 2011. Versus also failed to get Major League Baseball rights.”

While Versus has extended its deal with the NHL until 2007-08 (after an initial two-year deal) and after a slow start, audiences are growing, up to about 195,000 a game, this still falls far short of ESPN's 416,000 average in 2003-04 (the last year of its deal). Versus reaches 70 million homes, while ESPN and ESPN2 each reach more than 100 million homes.

And ESPN is busy building what could prove to be an impregnable rights portfolio to fuel dozen or so multimedia businesses in owns and that will continue to grow. George Bodenheimer, ESPN/ABC’s sports president says elsewhere in this magazine, “the ESPN of the 21st century is an array of new media platforms and content outlets reaching fans wherever and however they consume sports.” And analysts say it “can and will take sport to even higher levels of exposure and growth. Simply put it seems that ESPN has already taken cable television to another level averaging more than 10 million viewers weekly through the first ten weeks of ESPN’s Monday Night Football coverage.”

Could the biggest challenge to ESPN come ultimately from league-owned channels? Certainly not yet. And Pilson says, while we can expect to see more of the NFL channel, the Golf Channel, the tennis channel and NBA TV, they do not represent a threat as such.

“I think we can expect to see a hockey channel in the near future for example. These channels represent complementary services for the leagues. There is an effort to gain control over content and move more live coverage over to the channels but broadcast and cable coverage will remain dominant. The leagues want it both ways, to get in big rights fees and also to keep back some content. At this point, the owned-channels are doing ok, but not that great. The NFL wanted 70 million homes. It has around 40 million. NBA TV has limited distribution, as does the tennis channel. Only the Golf Channel is widely available in over 70 million homes.”

Beyond cable there are several other broadcast platforms that are now starting to contribute significant numbers to the sports rights pot, not least direct broadcast satellite. DirecTV provides substantial rights fees for several sports, and pays the NFL some $3.5 billion. Then there are the regional channels which are also doing very well particularly with baseball coverage and continue to contribute considerably to the leagues rights fee pot (except for the NFL where all revenues come from national TV).

Add to that the fact that all the Major Leagues have mobile rights deals and it is clear US sport, at least at Major League level is looking pretty healthy. While the rights market for Internet and mobile is clearly growing and many rights holders are trying to license these rights, they remain complementary markets thus far. They are not competing with TV at this stage. That said mobile fees are starting to become significant, with the NFL’s deal with Sprint worth $120 million a year.

Finally the emerging satellite radio market is becoming a serious revenue generator. XM Satellite radio has deals with the MLB for $650 million over 11 years and with the NHL for $100 million over 10 years. Meanwhile its rival Sirius has a seven-year deal with the NFL worth $220 million and a five-year deal with NASCAR, starting this season, worth $107.5 million.

Overall then the US sports rights market appears healthy. Accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers predict that by 2010 the US sports market as a whole will be worth a staggering $61.6 billion. And Pilson says, “there is a sense of optimism about the market in the US that the market is healthy, growing and that our major sports have economic balance, that is to say that there is a positive correlation between revenues and expenses. The NBA will come to the market soon and I expect them to also increase rights fees, although not to the same extent as the NFL or NASCAR.” College sports’ NCAA rights are also due for renewal as early as this year.

While the bigger sports, as elsewhere, are getting bigger in viewership and revenues, smaller sports are not always struggling. They are getting exposure and there are more ways for them to reach viewers than ever before.

And there are signs that smaller sports can do well financially too, not least with the vote of confidence shown by ESPN in soccer. In 2005, ESPN and Univision committed $470 million for English and Hispanic language North American rights for 2010-2014 World Cups, a 250 per cent increase on the previous US deal held by Soccer United Marketing and Univision. The deal makes the US the highest valued television market globally for FIFA. And then there is the $20 million that Major League Soccer is now getting for its rights until 2014, its first ever rights fee which includes $8 million a year from ESPN

Of course in the US as any market, the oil for the rights fee engine, is competition. And for the short-term at least, experts believe it will continue to drive rights fees.

CANADA

In Canada there is still really only one sports league in town - the NHL and its return in 2005-06, after a year’s lockout, significantly boosted the Canadian sports market.

TV rights fees in the Canadian market declined by some 58.6 per cent according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, for the 2004-05 season, the year of the lockout. But the return of the NHL, coupled with stiff competition for a number of sports properties, between public-service channel the CBC and BellGlobeMedia, the parent company of commercial broadcaster CTV and cable channel TSN, have created a healthy Canadian sports TV market.

At present public-service broadcaster CBC spends some C$300 million over four years on NHL rights, with TSN paying C$100 million for cable rights, also over four years. But these figures are about to go up. A new NHL rights deal involving the CBC and TSN is close to being done and the new agreements, which would start in 2008-09, are likely to be four to five years in length, with CBC's rights fee around C$100 million a year and TSN's cable fee around C$40-million a year. CBC would keep its famous Hockey Night in Canada brand, which features two teams a week.

The NHL rights increase is in part down to the aggressive approach taken by commercial broadcaster CTV over the last few years. CTV’s parent company, BellGlobeMedia, also owns TSN and it took the rights for the Canadian Football League from 2008, out of CBC hands late last year. It won the live, broadband, mobile, video-on-demand and interactive rights for 72 regular-season games, four division playoff games and the Grey Cup in a deal reportedly worth about $75 million, a substantial hike from the $45 million a season CBC is paying until the end of 2007.

There is also competition for games involving Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays this year. TSN, CBC and Rogers Sportsnet are all in the mix and soccer too is having its impact in the Canadian market; with the David Beckham effect a factor. Experts say the CBC, The Score and Rogers Sportsnet are interested in broadcasting Major League Soccer franchise Toronto FC’s games, with dedicated soccer channels GOLTV and Fox Sports also in the mix in a deal that could see MLS get its first, albeit small, Canadian rights fee.

PricewaterhouseCoopers expects the Canadian sports rights market to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 24.2 per cent a year to $1.1 billion by 2010. This is in large part based on any new and improved NHL deal, as well as the huge $153 million paid by commercial broadcaster CTV and Rogers Sportsnet to outbid CBC for the 2010 Winter Olympics, in Vancouver, Canada, three times the fee CBC paid for Turin 2006.

LATIN AMERICA

In Latin America, economic conditions are improving and the buzz is definitely back in the market, a fact born out by the Sportel market’s decision to return to Miami, the gateway to Latin America, after an absence of five years.

And the improved economic outlook has seen a dramatic increase in TV rights revenues over the last two years. Football of course is the main and most obvious right fee generator, but American football, baseball, basketball, golf and motor sports are also attracting a lot of interest from broadcasters. Rights fees are expected to increase across the region at around 10 per cent up to 2010.

In Brazil the league, run by Clube dos Treze, brings in $130 million a year for its TV rights. In Mexico the Primera Division brings in around $50 million a year for its TV rights (clubs sell rights individually) and in Argentina, the clubs bring in around $30 million a year. These deals are by some way the biggest TV rights deals in each market.

But the Latin American market is also buoyant with the rights for qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup – starting in September 2007, and for the Copa Libertadores in 2007 and 2009.

And Mexico in particular has become a very important market for US sports, especially the NFL. “Soccer, of course is main sport here, but every single Mexican sports fan is also a fan of an American football team. Dallas Cowboys, for example, are as popular as Chivas (Guadalajara’s football team) or America (Mexico City’s team)”, says Jos� Antonio Cort�s, managing editor of Record, a daily sports newspaper.

It is thought that American football is the second most popular sport in Mexico, with over 20 million fans watching an average of six games per weekend, not only via cable channels like ESPN or Fox Sports America, but also via local channels like TV Azteca or Televisa, which have acquired now NFL rights, after a period of not having been able to pay rights fees. NFL’s Mexican TV rights fees make it the No. 4 sports property in the country behind Primera Division soccer, the Mexican national team and the Olympic Games.

Outdoor Business
March, 2007
Thule’s New Wrap Image
By Thomas J. Ryan

Thule has teamed up with Original Wraps Inc. of Golden, CO, to create a program that allows Thule users to order images and graphics online and install them at home on their cargo boxes, ski carriers, bicycle carriers and fairings. Thule Wraps are made of automotive-grade vinyl that is custom printed through a six-color process with the customer’s selected pattern, image or licensed design, and then coated with a scratchproof finish and custom cut. Consumers will eventually be able to choose graphics from rock bands, sports teams, comics and Hollywood as part of the program. Although initially sold only through thulewraps.com, Thule will credit dealers for Wraps sold in their area, as well as referrals. Retail prices start at $19.99.

SportBusiness International
March, 2007
Virtual Racing
By Christian Sylt

The latest F1 video game resembles a television broadcast more than ever before and its creation involves the participants almost as much as the real thing.

F1's efforts to entice the youth market are centred around one product so it's perhaps no surprise that this has attention lavished on it. The sport has no cartoon, no comic strip and with items such as �250 carbon-fibre mousemats and �50 wallets amongst its stock, the official merchandise range doesn't cater for average children either. The videogame however is big business for children, teams and the rightsholder.

Since 2003 Sony has held the official F1 license for its range of PlayStation games consoles and is believed to pay around $15m per year to Formula One Management (FOM) for the privilege. But it's not just the rightsholder which reaps the rewards. Like television rights revenues, 47% of the videogame fee is split amongst the F1 teams and represents one of the largest single annual media rights payments in F1. Nevertheless, Sony more than makes its money back.

One of the first official F1 titles appeared on the original PlayStation in 1997 but despite many visual similarities between the installments, players keep queuing up to buy the games. Sony’s F1 games still sell over 500,000 copies and at an average price of $70, that’s $35m each year for a game believed to cost between $5m and $10m to develop. Adding the rights fee into the equation yields at least around $10m in profit for Sony and it makes the most of F1 being an annual championship.

A new version of the game appears around three months after the 19-race season starts in March every year and Sony has a 45-strong development team to pull off this annual production which takes around 10 months. It is programmed in Liverpool, far from the home of UK motorsport but it doesn't show.

Gone are the days of chasing a white dot around a black screen – drivers heads swing into corners, the pit crew is motion-captured and every tree at every circuit is placed where it actually is. Paying the game in heavy rain reveals the cars' reflections in the track surface as the rain drops stream down the digital visor.

Photorealism was the goal for the F1 title which launches in Europe later this year with Sony's latest gaming powerhouse, PlayStation 3. “Every seat on every stand has been modeled individually. Look closely at any of the cars in the game, and you will see every panel detail, every rivet exactly placed. Each mechanical detail is represented and the car suspension moves to match the cars dynamics,” says Graeme Ankers the game’s director. He adds, “tyre temperature is calculated and wear is introduced after a certain number of laps. Engine wear is accurately accounted for; we even simulate the travel of the accelerator when running up the revs.” There's good explanation for this attention to detail.

“The circuits in the game are built using many forms of reference data, ranging from architectural drawings and satellite photography through to extensive photographic track reference and video footage,” says Ankers. And to ensure that the track graphics mirror the ever-changing real world, he adds that Sony's photo library is updated throughout the season by F1 photo agency Sutton Images. “Our photo reference library currently contains over half a million digital pictures,” says Ankers but before even one snap is taken his team has access to track detail which might even make the teams weep.

“From a reference point of view, we receive regular information of all track changes from FOM’s circuit department,” he explains and adds . This provides us important information for each track, such as circuit length, width, camber, elevation, pit buildings and permanent grandstands.”

Of course the cars are the stars of the game and all the teams have a part to play in making it as accurate as possible. “Every year, the teams provide us with an array of reference material such as CAD files of their latest car designs, livery details and also technical reference information for areas such as gear ratios and engine output,” says Ankers. But this is just the tip of the teams' involvement.

To accurately recreate the impression of being strapped to a 200 mile-per-hour bullet, Ankers goes straight to the source. Like aeroplanes, each F1 car has a ‘black box’ which collects data, known as telemetry, whilst the car is racing. It includes everything from the fuel flow rate and engine temperature to the rpm. Ankers’ team pours over this data to ensure that the digital cars have a physics ‘engine’ matching the power behind their real-life counterparts.

Ankers says that teams even provide his team with audio recordings to recreate the famous F1 engine sounds and the result is noticeable. “If a car goes close to a barrier, you can hear the sound reflecting off it,” says Ankers adding that “if it goes behind a building, you can still hear it travelling past your viewing position but the building effectively absorbs some of the sound and you hear the tone and volume change.”

But the game's accuracy would end up in the pits if the digital drivers didn't behave like their flesh-and-blood brethren and the teams come to the rescue here too. Sony consults with various members of the teams about technical and handling issues and F1 superstar Fernando Alonso has even assisted with in-game car set up and handling.

Sony approaches the teams directly and Ankers says that through having the exclusive licence “we have built up a great relationship with virtually all the F1 teams.”

Likewise, Sony’s relationship with the rightsholder is equally important. “FOM as the licensor have final say on the placement of the advertisement and logos used and we are in daily contact with them throughout the season,” says Ankers. For a sport as intricate as F1 his achievement is no mean feat.