In October last year, ESPN-STAR Sports won the bid for the 2010/2013 Barclays Premier League broadcast rights for 18 markets across Asia. In some markets, it teamed up with other parties to jointly bid for the rights. For the Malaysian and Brunei markets, ESS teamed up with Astro.

Manu Sawhney, who was involved in the successful joint bid with Astro, explains that the bidding process is a complicated one. “In a nutshell, it’s a lot of money and it’s conducted on the Internet,” he says, declining to reveal the amount ESS and Astro paid for the rights. According to news reports late last year quoting sources close to Astro, the exclusive broadcast rights cost over US$250 million (RM855 million).

Explaining the process, Sawhney says broadcasters are either invited by the rights-holders or they can request to be involved in the bidding process. They have to meet the rights-holders’ comprehensive list of eligibility criteria from a commercial, distribution and financial guarantee perspective.

Bidders then propose the amount they are willing to pay the rights-holders for the broadcast rights, which is based on the numbers in the market. If the rights-holders are not satisfied with the rates proposed, there is a live Internet auction round for the bidders to put in their numbers, he adds.

“There are various caps — whether it’s more or less than a certain percentage. If your proposed figure is greater than someone else’s by a certain percentage, you get the rights; otherwise, the process continues,” he says.

Asked why ESS had teamed up with Astro for the broadcast rights instead of going it alone, he says both parties have been business partners for a long time and have a "very solid working relationship".

“Having built the [Barclays Premier League] property in Asia since 2001, we look forward to continue working with Astro to showcase the exciting BPL action for the coming seasons and reinforce our position as Asia’s No 1 sports content provider,” he says.




This article appeared in Manager@work, the monthly management pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 790, Jan 25-31, 2010