Granada Media and Liverpool Football Club are to unite in order to exploit the club’s new media and commercial rights to delayed coverage of Liverpool’s Premier League matches across online and broadband media.
The new business will create a LiverpoolFC.com, a portal including entertainment, e-commerce, education and personalised services content created by Granada Media. The portal’s potential audience consists of 2.5 million fans in the UK and a further estimated 10 million world-wide.
Under the terms of the agreement, Granada Media will acquire a 50% stake in the joint venture at a cost of £20m. The football club will contribute its media and commercial rights exclusively to the new business. Over time it is planned to roll the service out across all digital technologies, including the internet, broadband and digital television platforms, WAP phones and Personal Digital Assistants.
Ricky Parry, chief executive of Liverpool Football club said, “First and foremost it is a long term business venture that will enable us to participate in a global platform and develop the brand. But an immediate injection of £20m is very welcome and will support our primary objective of securing success on the pitch.”
Entertainment content on the portal will include delayed coverage of all the club’s Premier League matches, a video catalogue of past matches and goals and online games and betting services. E-commerce will enable the sale of club merchandise and branded products and services, while personalisation will include personal email addresses for fans, inter-fan audio and video conferencing and the ability to create tailored homepages and links. The new division of rights to Premier League match coverage was announced earlier this year and gave individual clubs the right to show delayed coverage on in-house television stations and websites (see How The Premier League Will Cash-In On Kick-Offs).
Granada Broadband will have overall responsibility for managing and developing the portal, while Granada Enterprises will handle the commercial exploitation, Granada Creative will create and aggregate portal content and Granada Education will develop the educational strategy and service.
Steve Morrison, chief executive of Granada Media said, “This is our first major broadband deal since we listed on the stock exchange (see Granada Media Begins Conditional Trading) and is an important step in Granada Media’s strategy of building broadband businesses around powerful brands with strong affinity groups.”
Granada Media: 020 7620 1620
