Agency MP & Silva lands Premier League TV rights in Middle East

[grahampaull]

No sure if I can link directly to Reuters so here is the text from the site:

(Reuters) - TV sports rights firm MP & Silva has trumped larger rivals Abu Dhabi Media (ADM) and Al Jazeera to win a three-year contract to distribute English Premier League soccer in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Premier League announced the agreement with the international media agency on Thursday, the latest in a series of rights deals expected to bring the League a total windfall of more than 5 billion pounds ($7.9 billion) in 2013 through 2016.

ADM had paid $300 million for the current three-year deal and MP & Silva said the cost of the new agreement was close to that figure.

ADM had been expected to fight hard to retain the rights, since Premier League Champions Manchester City are owned by Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera has also been building up its sports broadcasting business, launching channels in France and the United States, and had been expecting to bid strongly for the Premier League rights in its home region.

MP & Silva CEO Andrea Radrizzani said the big two broadcasters did not bid as aggressively as he had feared.

"Our price was quite near what ADM paid in the past," Radrizzani told Reuters. "Even though the price was quite high, we thought it was killer content for the region."

The rights cover all 380 Premier League matches per season and extend across 23 countries from Iran to Morocco, taking in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Having bought the rights, MP & Silva will seek to do its own deals with broadcasters in the region to show live action.

Viewers in some countries may not need to adjust their television sets to receive new channels because MP & Silva plans to negotiate with ADM and Al Jazeera.

Any agreement to sub-license the rights has to be approved by the Premier League. Despite its growing sports portfolio, Al Jazeera currently has no Premier League rights.

The Premier League is the richest in the world in terms of TV revenue and outperforms Spanish and German rivals when it comes to selling overseas.

"There is a lot of appetite for football and the Premier League is the best league in the world," said Radrizzani.

"The format is very good for the region in terms of time slots at the weekend," he added.

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What will this mean for viewers in the UK, would we be able to pick these up, I am not too sure who MP & Silva are.

[popi110]

wonder if admc or jsc will buy the games from them they seem to be a sports wholesale provider so will be intresting to see what the format is
from the website

We are a leading international media rights company that owns, manages and distributes television media rights.

With an annual turnover of USD 350 million, the MP & Silva group has established an exemplary track record in distributing TV and media rights for sports federations, leagues, clubs and rights holders and represents some of the most important and world-class sports events.

Our unparalleled television rights portfolio - providing annually over 10,000 hours of programming to over 200 broadcasters in 215 countries - includes Europe's top leagues in football, FIFA World Cup qualifiers, Grand Slam tennis, motor racing, handball, baseball, volleyball, boxing and many others including the Asian Games.

Headquartered in London and Singapore, we operate worldwide through regional offices in Beijing, Budapest, Dubai, Dublin, Hanoi, Paris, Miami, Milan, Monaco, Munich, New York, Tokyo and Warsaw

[rigsby71]

A bit like IMG then ?

[digicon]

Rumours abound that MP & Silva and Al Jazeera are a lot closer than many people think so expect an announcement soon, Probably why AJ are going to paired Card/Receiver combination from next January

[pob639]

So what satellite do they broadcast on what size dish will we require in uk to watch theses games as been seriously thinking of getting a 2.4m dish for last few months now imported from a maltese supplier I deal with through work ?

[rigsby71]

I wouldn't bother getting a 2.4m dish just yet.

Just wait & see who gets what.

You can also bet that if it can be picked up in the UK, you can be assured that the Premier League will do all they can to stop any satellite signal reaching the UK carrying live 3pm games.

They will insist on thing like tighter beams, cards paired with boxes that are connected to local internet so the box can be tracked.

It's just not that easy to say...."I'll get a big dish", it just isn't that simple these days & certainly won't be that easy in the future.

[karlpowell]

mmm wonder if will tie in with jsc/Al Jazeera tied cards in January ?

[borderfox]

I wouldn't bother getting a 2.4m dish just yet.

Just wondered what the current requirement would be in terms of a dish to receive admc via satellite?

I have a friend who has moved with a multi-national to Moldova. He was asking me if its possible to receive from there? Is there a 'footprint' map for these specific beams on nilesat or badr6 available? It would have to be satellite - streaming isn't an option.

[rigsby71]

Just wondered what the current requirement would be in terms of a dish to receive admc via satellite?

I have a friend who has moved with a multi-national to Moldova. He was asking me if its possible to receive from there? Is there a 'footprint' map for these specific beams on nilesat or badr6 available? It would have to be satellite - streaming isn't an option.

I do know that in southern Spain, it is picked up via a 1.1M dish as i've seen it working, but then again they get perfect weather most of the time.

Looking at the map, Moldova looks a touch closer than southern Spain to the middle east but depends what kind of weather they get. I would say at a guess they could go for a 1.1 or 1.2 ,but bigger the better really.

But then again, they in Spain could be picking up the beams from across the Med from north Africa so they could actually be a lot closer to the beam so a dish in Moldova may need to be say 1.8M as they are not near the main beam (footprint)

[Nutsandbolts]

Why are people panicking?? This company have bought the rights for Middle East and North Africa ONLY and not the world. They will have no control over European rights. I doubt that Al Jazzeera would care much about the Premier league in Europe as they will have too many competitors anyway. Al Jazeera wanted the rights for the Middle east etc. Only thing you have to worry about in Europe is the change of encryptions which may stop illegal viewing.

Regards