FIFA rights win means a lot to Telelatino

Discretionary multicultural specialty channel owner Telelatino Network Inc. (TLN) and CBC/Radio-Canada have teamed up to land the broadcast rights for the next seven years’ worth of international soccer tournaments. " certainly not a matter of the CBC needing the financial contribution of Telelatino," Telelatino president Aldo Di Felice says of the deal with the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Di Felice says that "bidding for the whole of the rights in Canada would beyond our means." Instead, he explains, Telelatino – which is majority-owned by Corus Entertainment Inc. – brought access to third-language audiences to the table. The CBC/SRC/TLN proposal was reportedly chosen over a rival bid by CTV Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., which would have drawn on their respective TSN/RDS and Rogers Sportsnet sports specialty channels to deliver the coverage. The package includes Canadian broadcast and ancillary rights for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, as well as the 2014 World Cup, a venue for which has yet to be awarded. Each World Cup will feature 64 games, some of which will be aired in real-time as well as rerun during prime time on the two broadcasters’ properties. The broadcasters also snagged the rights to other FIFA events, notably the 2007 FIFA Men’s U-20 World Cup, which will be held in six Canadian cities, and the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup taking place in China. Di Felice says that with the launch of a new Toronto professional soccer team, the sport appears to be building in popularity in Canada; as such, he’s especially excited about next year’s men’s event. "That’s going to be a galvanizing event for soccer fans here," he says. In total, the deal with FIFA covers 32 separate tournaments over the seven-year contract. Nonetheless, Canada is still a relatively minor territory for FIFA. " North America obviously as more of an emerging market for soccer," Di Felice says. But, the international governing body clearly values the ethnic market in the US and Canada, given the success of soccer on specialty channels such as Univision, the top Latino broadcaster south of the border. Di Felice says that TLN currently broadcasts about three-quarters of its programming in either Italian or Spanish, with a roughly equal breakdown between the two. The remaining 25% of the broadcast day is generally given over to English-language programming. However, TLN will also employ secondary audio programming (SAP) to deliver more than one language track per game. For instance, primary audio for an Italy game would obviously be in Italian, but SAP could feature Portuguese or Spanish. The CBC and Radio-Canada are tasked with delivering coverage in Canada’s two official languages. Having rerun some of the games for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, TLN has a system in place for delivering coverage of such world-class events, Di Felice says. "We basically either did coverage here, where we took the clean feed and did our own play-by-play here, or we took the Univision feed from the US," he says. He adds that while TLN hasn’t formulated a detailed plan for covering the 2010 tournament in South Africa, "I think we will a crew, and at the same time…I think we’ll probably the feed that’s coming through the CBC or through the US," he says. "So, it’ll be a mix of both local and international content in terms of the play-by-play and commentary." In addition to the primary broadcast rights, TLN and CBC have secured the right to sell FIFA coverage to VOD services, as well as mobile video rights. "Really these kinds of international, world soccer events are seen as the ultimate multi-platform products," he continues. Because soccer fans crave information when their team is playing in such a crucial tournament, "these are perfectly set up to be streamed on the ‘Net have mobile capability."

FIFA rights win means a lot to Telelatino

Broadcast | October 11, 2006

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