EURO 2008 TV deals not coming through

Germany and Austria are discouraged by the high price for the broadcasting rights of EURO 2008.

"We could have the broadcast rights tomorrow if we would pay the incredible fee the UEFA wants," said Elmar Oberhauser, spokesman for Austrian state broadcasters ORF, to the Kurier Daily. "I am strictly against it."

Austria and Switzerland are co-hosting the tournament, but unlike the Swiss, the Austrians have not signed an agreement.

Some nations will not sign up until its clubs have qualified, or like Spain, will wait until the last minute when the World Cup 2006 deal was not finalised until three months before the tournament.

Italy is the only major European television market to have a EURO 2008 deal, which is with state broadcasters RAI.

There are also contracts with larger football nations such as the Netherlands, Portugal and Croatia, but those countries have smaller TV markets compared to those in Italy, Germany, Britain, Spain or France.

There is growing speculation that UEFA could run into trouble over its decision to distribute, for the first time in tournament history, the rights in a market-by-market plan, via the SPORTFIVE agency.

Some EUR 600 million is expected to be made from TV rights, but that amount might be too high even in a sport as popular as football.

In the past, the rights were sold directly to the networks through the European Broadcasting Union.

SPORTFIVE is rumoured to want EUR 150 million for the German rights, an amount not only too high for commercial broadcasters such as Sat1 and RTL, but also for state networks ARD and ZDF, which are the traditional big-event football broadcasters.

ARD has made an offer that is below the SPORTFIVE asking price.

"We have reached our limit, which means in this case that we are paying more for a EURO match than for a World Cup game," said Monika Biel from ARD to the Neue Ruhr Zeitung - Neue Rhein Zeitung.

The EURO tournament is not very attractive for pay-TV networks because there are only 31 EURO matches compared to 64 World Cup matches, and UEFA wants as many as possible aired on free-TV.

Further negotiations are scheduled, which could be similar to the "very tough talks" Oberhauser foresees on the Austrian side, but some networks have expressed no further interest in talks.

There is speculation within the TV community that things could change since Michel Platini was elected as UEFA president and SPORTFIVE, which was sold to French media company, Legardere, has a new board of directors.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.