Media watchers say that mio TV, the pay-TV channel launched by Singapore’s SingTel in July 2007, was left a non-starter after losing out on English Premier League (EPL) broadcast rights to market leader and pay TV incumbent StarHub Digital Cable. As it is, SingTel has struggled to amass less than 50,000 subscribers 17 months since launching, “reasonable progress”, according to SingTel’s director of mio TV and content, Low Ka Hoe, who wearily concedes that football is the “hard currency” of Singaporean pay-TV, as it is in most of Southeast Asia (see table). StarHub, which paid at least US$150 million for the EPL rights for three seasons three years ago, has more than 500,000 subscribers. It also claims to be growing at least as fast as its new rival. If true, this is bad news for mio TV’s advertising sales team, whose primary audience is low-to-middle income consumers of Hokkien and Malay-language programming. EPL, on the other hand, delivers audiences of 14-34 year old men, a marketer’s prime audience. Yes, the value in people’s joy of watching men chase bouncing spheres or hit each other with big red gloves shows no sign of decreasing in Asia. The Philippine police force reported a plunge in crime rate when Manny Pacquiao fought Oscar de la Hoya on December 6, 2008 – almost everybody was indoors watching the fight on TV. Although the fight was a delayed telecast, by which time everyone knew that Pacquiao had won, 12 million people – 33 percent of the population – tuned in to watch. “The streets of Manila are a lot safer when Manny is fighting,” says Venus Navalta, managing director of Universal McCann Philippines. The victorious ‘Pac Man’ was worth between 15 to 30 million Pesos (US$300,000 to $600,000) for an advertising package through exclusive broadcaster GMA7. Small beer compared to the US$3.7 billion given to America’s NFL by ESPN, CBS, NBC and Fox every year, but an indication nonetheless of sport’s pulling power in Asia. Particularly when the hero is local. The broadcast rights for Indian cricket’s newly launched Indian Premier League were bought by Sony Entertainment Television for US$1.1 billion for a 10-year period last year. The ‘national religion’ is known to attract domestic audiences upwards of 300 million (the NFL’s Super Bowl pulled in 147 million, at its peak, in the final). And that doesn’t take into account the fact that out-of-home viewing goes completely unmeasured in India, as it does for sports TV consumption in most of Asia. It is hardly surprising, then, that advertisers and sponsors increasingly see sports programming as a must-have on the media schedule – measured or not. Newcomers to sport in Asia, such as the incense-making brand Cycle, which sponsors Indian cricket, are not necessarily looking for their brand values to match those of the sport. (Incense is generally burned during prayers in India, or to drive crickets of the insect variety out of the house – certainly not on the cricket field.) They simply want to get in front of a large, passionate audience. But more creative ways of bridging the divide between sports fan and advertiser are emerging. AirAsia departed from the norm when it chose to sponsor the EPL’s referees and linesman, which carry the AirAsia logo on their shirts. “The more wreckless fouls, bad behaviour and sendings off, the better,” says the Malaysian low-cost airline’s group CEO Tony Fernandes. “We tried to put our logo on the red card, but the FA wouldn’t let us.” What advertisers can and cannot do in Asia is unlikely to reach the liberal standards of some markets, such as Spain where computer-generated car brands are regularly seen ‘driving’ across the bottom of the TV screen during live La Liga matches. But technology is enabling brands to stretch their associations with sport into other media. Brands started moving from TV to digital properties such as computer games – widely blamed for the decline in TV viewing in the US – in the 1990s. The difference now is that advertisers use moving rather than static ads (known as ‘dynamic’ ads), which can be altered remotely, in real time. Advertisers now try to weave their brands into the way the game is played, or play the sporting hero, as Lexus and Ducati have done in Test Drive Unlimited. However, neither the rise of digital technology nor the economic crisis has done much to stop media owners making the case that sport on TV is, to a degree, recession proof. Farid Ridzuan is group CEO of Malaysian media conglomerate Media Prima, which owns all of the country’s free-to-air TV stations and a lot more besides. He says that in recession time people tend to spend 50 percent more time than usual watching TV. It is a cheaper lifestyle choice than leaving the house to go shopping, he argues. Cheap is not a word he would use to describe the estimated US$600 million paid by ESPN for the EPL rights across most of Asia from 2007 till 2010 (the broadcaster lost out in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and China). The EPL is the most widely distributed sporting league in Asia, with matches in China attracting audiences of up to 360 million people. Even so, the cost of EPL rights has “gone way over the top”, reckons Jim Goh, the executive director of Omnicom Media Group Asia-Pacific. StarHub paid 30 percent more than ESPN Star Sports for the EPL broadcasting rights for Singapore three years ago. According to research company CIMB, the rights for the 2010-2012 seasons could cost 60 percent more again when they are bid for in 2009, jumping to US$400 million. “In 2006, companies aggressively contested the EPL rights. I’m not sure there will be quite the same enthusiasm in 2009,” says Goh, who adds that even a small increase in price will mean EPL is beyond some advertisers whose budgets are shrinking. “It’s an unsustainable business model. The problem is not only the cost of EPL, for which advertisers already pay double what they would for a 30-second spot on a regular primetime show. It’s the clutter and the fact that cable TV audiences are not reliably measured. In many markets, EPL does not deliver the audiences broadcasters claim.” Just as Honda has pulled out of Formula 1, with the threat of others to follow, marketers could be forced to look at less expensive sporting properties on which to build their brands. “TV viewing may be recession proof. But marketers’ budgets certainly are not. The elite club of marketers that buys the EPL will shrink next year,” says Vishnu Mohan, regional CEO of the Havas-owned Media Planning Group. “One of my clients sponsors a major golf tournament, but they are in two minds over whether to continue in 2009.” Retreating marketing dollars may apply the brakes to the growing dominance of a small number of sports in Asia. Rugby and cricket may dominate in Australia, baseball in Taiwan, football in Thailand and badminton and WWE in Malaysia (if you consider wrestling a sport), according to Initiative figures. But less ‘anchor’ sports are gaining ground across the region. “Boxing is declining around the world because of the rise of cage fighting,” observes Stewart Mison, senior consultant, Futures sports and entertainment at Initiative, referring to the brutal mixed martial arts phenomenon known as Ultimate Fighting Championship. “Who’s to say that Thai boxing or Judo can’t attract international audiences, too?” Strong performances at the Olympics have seen gymnastics gain popularity among TV viewers in China. Similarly for equestrianism in Hong Kong. Even in Indonesia, where Olympics coverage was restricted to obscure cable channel Citra, the success of its badminton team has generated more interest in the sport. But opinion is divided as to how these, and other ‘long tail’ sports, will be made available in the future. For a sport like golf, which requires longer viewing time, broadcast will always be key. But extreme sports such as inline skating or base-jumping will stay online where the younger audiences can get involved and interact, says Mike Jackson, the regional head of MEC Access. Digital channels will suit sports like cricket and baseball, where extra features such stats and player profiles are as popular as live action, he added. The digital world will increasingly cross over into the real one in sport, reckons Mison. “One day, Manchester United will play some of their ‘away’ games in Second Life, and their sponsors will follow them,” he says. Sports content could move the other way, too. Computer gamers could see their contests in NCAA Football Series or Championship Manager not only fought out on the internet, but on mainstream TV, if they are good enough. “Gaming could become a regular sporting event on terrestrial TV,” Mison suggests. As it is, sports content is changing, giving advertisers more opportunities to expose their brands to new audiences. New TV formats featuring stars from different sports are cropping up (Manny Pacquiao is rumoured to be in talks with San Miguel Corporation about hosting his own cookery show). Meanwhile, reality shows such as The Amazing Race Asia have sporting elements that give brands such as Caltex a fresh angle on sport. Sports broadcasting is changing too. Media owners are starting their own competitions, such as Zee TV’s Indian Cricket League, which launched last year. And the biggest sporting teams now have TV channels of their own, which make money not from advertising or sponsorship, but subscription and merchandising. “Manchester United and Real Madrid are no longer just sporting teams. They are entertainment brands in their own right, like Warner, Universal Studios or Disney,” says Mison. Manchester United and its rivals were unhappy with the exposure they were getting through small, obscure channels, such as WinTV in China, which paid US$50 million for the EPL rights. So they decided to create their own entertainment platforms, with higher quality and more detailed experiences for the viewer, such as high definition, he adds. And while Man U TV and Chelsea TV may not be much good to regular brands as advertising platforms yet, they show how brands can create entertainment properties of their own around sport. The Nokia Football Crazy and Tiger FC Locker Room features on ESPN Star Sport’s EPL coverage do this too. 2009 is unlikely to be as eventful, in sporting terms, for TV companies or advertisers as 2008, when the UEFA European football championships and, of course, the Beijing Olympics took place. But there are still rights and sponsorships to be sold. The EPL, which will be trying to improve on the US$927 million it received for the 2007-2010 seasons, the 2012 London Olympics, the UEFA Champions League and the IAAF athletics championships in Korea are all ‘in market’ in 2009. But with most marketing budgets set to be cut (a recent survey by consultancy R3 found that 94 percent of marketers in Asia expect to have smaller budgets in 2009), TV companies and sports teams can only hope that sponsors will think long-term and show some good old-fashioned loyalty. As MEC’s Jackson points out, “The Johnnie Walker Classic wouldn’t be much of a classic without Johnnie Walker, would it?” TVAplus