Football Federation Australia has extended World Sport Group’s agreement to represent the worldwide (excluding Australia and Oceania) broadcast rights for the Hyundai A-League.
Football Federation Australia (FFA) has extended World Sport Group-s (WSG) agreement to represent the worldwide (excluding Australia and Oceania) broadcast rights for the Hyundai A-League, for a further four years, until the end of the 2016/17 season.
The new agreement also coincides with the news that, WSG has signed agreements with BT Vision (replacing BSkyB) to show at least two matches each week in the UK and extended their agreement with Mediaset to show all Sydney FC matches in Italy for the Hyundai A-League 2013/14 season.
FFA CEO David Gallop said continuing the relationship with WSG to sell the international broadcast rights will greatly increase the exposure to Australian football and will benefit both the league and the national team.
“We have had a long and productive history working with WSG and we look forward to continuing this relationship and developing further broadcast opportunities internationally for the promotion and visibility of Australian football,” said Gallop.
“The Hyundai A-League is a hugely popular asset internationally not only for expat Australian-s whose emails we receive on a weekly basis but also new fans turning their attention to the league.
“Last year-s arrival of Alessandro Del Piero, Shinji Ono and Emile Heskey has already seen the visibility of our game grow at an international level - with this new agreement in place the Hyundai A-League now has a potential audience in the tens of millions internationally.”
In addition to the Hyundai A-League, the FFA has also extended WSG-s agreement to sell the broadcast rights to the Australian senior men-s national team matches.
“Following qualification for our third successive FIFA World Cup the Socceroos prominence on the international stage continues to grow,” continued Gallop.
“We have some fantastic fixtures in the planning as we head into the 2014 FIFA World Cup and ensuring these matches are available to a broad international audience is essential to our development as a nation and solidifying our prominence in Asia.”
Based out of Singapore, WSG has been an FFA sales partner since 2005.
“We are pleased to extend our partnership with Football Federation Australia for a further four years,” said James Clarke, Senior Vice President, Content at World Sport Group.
“The Hyundai A-League is one of Asia-s leading leagues and together with FFA, we have been able to build a strong broadcast platform for the competition across Asia and around the world over the past few years.”
Matches from the Hyundai A-League 2012/13 season were televised in major markets worldwide with a potential reach of nearly 90 million. Broadcasters who aired the matches included Mediaset Premium Calcio in Italy, BSkyB in the United Kingdom, Fox Sports and One World Sports in the USA, TV Asahi and NHK in Japan, i-Cable in Hong Kong, Astro in Malaysia, Starhub in Singapore and Guangdong TV in China.
“In the new cycle we-re looking to extend the platform further to more broadcasters in Asia, where Australian football is increasingly important, and also to broadcasters in English-speaking countries which have an affinity with Australia,” Clarke said. “We are also looking to grow the league-s distribution in southern and eastern Europe; regions with large migrant and expatriate populations in Australia.
Additionally, in partnership with Perform, the digital rights group, WSG will also stream every match played in the Hyundai A-League worldwide (subject to geoblocking in selected territories) on www.aleague.livesport.tv. WSG will support the league broadcasts on online and social media including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.