SPORTFIVE win UEFA EURO 2008 rights

UEFA has awarded the rights to the German-based media agency in a bid to maximize their revenue from the event. The move described as a "major shift in policy" ended UEFA's decades-old relationship with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and will change the way TV viewers across Europe will watch matches in the finals in three years' time. "This represents a sea-change for UEFA, a major change of policy for us. The arrangement with SPORTFIVE will work in a similar way as the one with TEAM who market the Champions League. SPORTFIVE will approach each TV market individually and open up a competition for the rights. In the main our preferred partner would be a free-to-air broadcaster. By doing this and changing our policy it means we have control over the production and can oversee the product much more carefully,” chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson commented to media. UEFA is to earn more than €600m for the TV rights, a 20% increase over the income from EURO 2004 in Portugal. SPORTFIVE is owned by US-based private equity firm Advent International and European broadcaster RTL. It was formed in 2001 when Canal Plus and RTL's parent Bertelsmann merged their sporting rights with JC Darmon, a French sports marketing firm.

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