Battle for BPL broadcast rights set for kickoff
FOUR broadcasters will potentially start bidding this week for the right to screen the Barclays Premier League matches for the next three seasons in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, a sports industry insider has said.
The number of bidders has not yet been confirmed but the rights holder, Thailand’s CTH, has signalled its intention to bid again for the popular British football league.
Another leading pay-TV operator, TrueVisions, has also expressed its intention to bid for the content after previously holding the rights.
The Barclays Premier League is also very attractive for international broadcasters.
Recently, Qatar’s BeIN Sports struck an exclusive deal to broadcast Spain’s La Liga for three seasons, commencing with the current season.
Fox International Channels secured a remarkable deal with Germany’s Bundesliga to broadcast live all 306 Bundesliga matches each season for five years in Latin America, the USA and Asia.
From this week, all tenders for the Barclays Premier League rights enter a non-disclosure period.
The industry source said that the winner would be announced at the end of next month.
Barclays Premier League executives visited Thailand and met several potential bidders last month, the source said.
In 2012 CTH, which was led by veteran investor Wichai Thongtang, landed broadcasting rights for the BPL for three seasons from the 2013/14 season at the extremely high price of almost Bt10 billion.
Each season comprises 380 matches that can be telecast live.
Despite facing difficulty in running its pay-TV business, CTH chairman Wichai said in June that the company would again bid for the Barclays Premier League.
He could not be reached for comment for this article.
In an interview with The Nation last month, Birathon Kasermsri Na Ayudhaya, head of commercial and business development at TrueVisions, stressed that the company wanted to air the Barclays Premier League but at a reasonable price. “In the previous bid, we had to give up because of the intense competition from a rival. This investment by the rival is considered extremely high, almost three times larger than what TrueVisions had paid for the previous deal,” Birathon said.
He said that the company’s failure to clinch the Barclays Premier League rights had a small impact on its business.
