Chinese Sportscn to broadcast FL over broadband

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The Football League has teamed up with Chinese sports content providers, Sportscn, to allow Chinese fans the opportunity to watch live Football League games via broadband in the 2005-06 season. Research carried by Sportscn, found that amongst Chinese fans the Coca-Cola Championship is the fourth highest profile domestic football league in the world. Test broadcasts on the new broadband service attracted more than 100,000 viewers for certain games as the 2004/05 season drew to a close. Sportscn are to show the same Football League and Carling Cup matches that are broadcast live on Sky Sports to domestic UK television viewers. The service is only available to subscribers living in China, with a strict IP-blocking policy. Matches are streamed live at 350kps with Chinese commentary added in Shanghai - various real time stats are also added in Chinese to be displayed to users on screen. Subscribers can pay 100 RMB (app.EU9.60) per month for all live games, or 8 RMB (app. EU0.7) for single live games.

Sportscn broadband service has already gained some success in China. By mid-May 2005, nearly 250 live sports matches from various leagues had been shown on the platform, of which approximately 10% were from The Football League (24 matches) and Carling Cup (5 matches). Sportscn’s Football League deal was put together by FMMInternational, Sportscn’s exclusive rights acquisition partner, and by Octagon CSI, international media rights holders for The Football League.

Justin Hardcastle, CEO of Sportscn said, "We have created a unique offering in China and will continue to improve the quality and range of services on offer via our platform. We are excited about the future of sports in the World’s greatest market and are confident that with our partners FMMInternational we will continue to develop more exciting offerings to a very knowledgeable Chinese sports audience."

Shanghai Sportscn Information Technology Co., Ltd. (“Sportscn”) was founded in Shanghai in 2000. The company is based in Shanghai, and has over 300 employees in offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. It is one of the largest internet sports content providers in China with an internet user base of more than 3 million and over 1.3 million unique visitors per day. Sportscn also produces the Official Chinese language web sites for a number of European clubs.