Football And Media Trend Continues

In the week which has seen deals between football and media giants materialising, with BSkyB buying Manchester United for £625 million (see Newsline), and Carlton offering a more modest offer for the Arsenal Club (see Newsline), the trend looks set to continue.

There were reports this morning that Aston Villa football club may be in talks with Carlton, but the club today vehemently denied that any discussions with media companies involved a take-over bid. They released an official statement saying: “At this time no talks are being held in respect of either a strategic investment in or a potential take-over of Aston Villa plc as has been reported in the press.”

Despite this however, the finance director of the club did stress that broadcasting and publishing formed an important part of the club’s income and was a major contributor to its footballing costs, and that therefore discussions with media companies would continue on a regular basis in the normal course of business. There is speculation that a deal involving an in-house TV service could be part of the discussions.

Continuing in the same vein, the Mirror Group’s Live TV announced today that they have struck a deal with the Scottish Hearts Football club and its affiliate arm, Edinburgh Live, which secures the channel exclusive rights for a twice weekly fanzine show called ‘Heart’s Live‘ about one of Scotland’s leading premier clubs.

The two year deal secures the group rights to the club but not its games, and therefore the deal will not interfere with BSkyB’s broadcasting rights to the Scottish Premier League (see Newsline). Managing director if Live TV Mark Cullen commented: “The Hearts football show points the way to the future of the City Television Network. We are ideally placed to bring interesting and detailed coverage of Edinburgh’s premiere football team to cable TV viewers in Edinburgh.”

Either way, as speculation continues as to the increasingly close relationship between sport and entertainment, city media analysts are sure that Arsenal and Manchester United will not be the only clubs to fall into media mogul hands.

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