Telia mobile to screen football matches

Telia signed a four-year contract to get the exclusive rights to broadcast Swedish football matches, which will let its Swedish customers watch premier division international football matches on their mobile phones. The agreement covers both live broadcasts and post-match summaries.

In the first phase, Telia customers will be offered live broadcasts of premier division matches as part of the television programming package available through Telia's SurfPort.

The agreement will let viewers choose to watch live broadcasts or receive post-match summaries and will let Telia offer services such as match results and the broadcast of exclusive material during and after football matches.

"Football is without comparison our greatest public sport and many hearts will beat a little extra when the start of the premier division season is approaching, or when the Swedish national team will play qualification matches for the European Championship or World Cup," said Håkan Dahlström, head of Mobility Services Sweden at TeliaSonera.

"The new agreement will allow our customers to follow the Swedish team in international competition or monitor the progress of their favourite local team wherever and whenever they want."

The agreement Telia has signed with Kentaro, which owns the media rights to Swedish football until 2010, covers both live broadcasts and summaries of matches.

Telia has also entered into partnerships with the Swedish FA, the elite associations of the Swedish Elite Football Association (SEF) and the association for elite women's football (EFD).

Telia will be an exclusive sponsor and telecommunications partner in those deals.

"Now that Swedish football has taken a major leap into the largest mobile network in Sweden, with 4.6 million users, we believe it will further increase the Swedish people's interest in football and mobile television broadcasting," said Dahlström.

"According to the 2007 Telia Trend Report, three out of ten people in Sweden would like to watch television on their mobiles already today – a percentage that will mostly likely increase soon among all of the country's football lovers."

Football fans will be offered programming packages for their favourite clubs and will be able to hear live broadcasts and obtain match.

Summaries of individual matches or from an entire match series, as well as reports with match highlights, are other services that are being evaluated and might be offered during the spring season of the premier division in Sweden.

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