SPORT IP
A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME
Licensing football on television was once a simple task.
However, as competition between channels grows, so does the battle for obtaining rights. TB&I looks at the rights industry in Europe.
In 1992, English football changed beyond recognition. T e UK’s most successful clubs formed a breakaway league, the English Premier League (EPL), and signed a deal with satellite broadcaster BSkyB to televise more live matches than ever before.
Fast forward to the present day and winning the rights to show sport on television is arguably the biggest selling point in a broadcaster’s portfolio. In turn, the right to broadcast live sport is becoming one of the most hotly contested battles in the media.
www.worldipreview.com
According to Markus Körner, partner at Bird & Bird LLP in Munich, the primary goal of television rights owners now is to add live sports coverage to their portfolio and get hold of a “small slice from a big cake”.
With such fi erce competition, this off ers many choices to the organisations tasked with licensing the rights to broadcast matches.
In recent years, two organisations that have profi ted signifi cantly
from sport’s growing
popularity on television are the EPL, English football’s multi-billion valued top division, and
the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the administrative body for European football associations.
The EPL is big business. Earlier in 2013, responding to requests for comment on Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth, Professor Ian Hargreaves’ 2011 independent review of the UK’s IP system, the EPL told the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) that annual IP revenue,
its including licensing, exceeded £1 billion ($1.62 billion). Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 2, Issue 4 37
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