iSporter Saurabh Singh Shishodia discusses about telecast rights on Indian football and his take on it. Read on!
Indian Football once again against all odds has won a small battle of being present on Indian television with IMG-Reliance joint venture for sports business in India has got marketing and distribution rights for Indian football worth Rs. 7 billion.
With Zee sports now Tens Action+ has completely gone into International football with subscription money coming into their pockets with Young people as fans of European clubs in metros, but in terms of viewership ratings are not even close to 0.5 because of odd timings of champions league and Spanish La Liga and many other broadcasting issues.
IMG-Reliance has paid Zee Rs.700 million to terminate the existing contract with AIFF which shows the determination and urge of the company for non-cricket sports in India.
But the question remains about the broadcasting partner because the joint venture doesn’t have any channel leaving behind the question of sports channel. But few things that the company needs to take care is whether the channel would complement their marketing initiatives for which they have put in huge money not just in promotions but also working at grassroots level by helping under 16 squads with scholarships.
As far as the broadcasting scenario is concerned the sports channel having content other than cricket needs to pay huge amount on distribution because there is no pressure on cable operators to carry their channel free of cost from consumer side or mass audience that has little knowledge about Indian football. But with football being a community sport that has been breeding on club or community culture needs reach which makes sports channel pay heavy price to cable operators to carry their channel. IMG-Reliance needs to very careful while choosing a broadcasting partner with Reach which is so important for this kind of popular spectator sport.
For IMG-Reliance having broadcasting as a separated external vertical or may be if they come with their own channel with the amount of rights (ex: Basketball too) they have got in their kitty for which Information & Broadcasting ministry should help them with license, it is a good decision to have separate vertical which made difficult for Zee to get sponsorships, marketing and broadcasting done at the same time. Indian football is currently sitting at Rs. 5 billion valuation with Nike, Panasonic already sponsoring Indian teams.
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