Football nets global winner

increase the customer base for the clubs' merchandise and services.

Although United has had a substantial fan base in the Far East for some
years, the prevalence of bootleg merchandise in the region has made it
difficult to extract revenue from their loyalties. But branded TV
channels, providing player interviews and match coverage to fans starved
of club news and unable to attend games, are seen as a much more viable
cash generator.

The most advanced, Manchester United's MUTV, will be seven years old in
September. It has about 100,000 subscribers in the UK and Ireland, each
paying £6 a month to receive the channel on the Sky, ntl:home and
Telewest Broadband platforms.

Chelsea, Celtic and Glasgow Rangers - the latter two channels operated
by Irish sports broadcaster Setanta - share the same platforms, while a
number of other clubs operate broadband TV services on their
websites.

Arsenal, meanwhile, has experimented with an hour-a-day TV service in
the Far East and is preparing to launch a full-blown channel.

Live action

MUTV is available to 80m viewers in 68 overseas countries. It is hoped
this summer's Far East tour, taking in the club's first visit to China,
will boost this figure dramatically. Market surveys suggest that United
already has 23m serious followers in China, with as many as 500m
claiming to favour the club.

A drawback to their expansion in the UK market, though, is that football
TV channels carry no competitive live action. MUTV has exclusive live
rights to the Far East tour, but domestic and European competition games
are shown 'tape-delayed' at midnight on the day of the match.

A football TV channel with no live action is akin to a pub that only
sells non-alcoholic drinks, so you would expect the top clubs to be
looking to pick up more rights in the next round of TV negotiations. In
this, they will be assisted by the EU, which, having failed to end Sky's
monopoly of Premiership matches last time around, has signalled its
determination to do so when the next contracts are negotiated in time
for the start of the 2007/08 season.

Manchester United's new American owner, Malcolm Glazer, has identified
media rights as an underexploited revenue-earner. At the very least, he
wants to see the club gain the overseas rights to matches. He may be
prepared to take on the Premier League and rival clubs by demanding an
end to the existing collective exploitation of domestic rights.

However, he is unlikely to count on the support of Chelsea. Chris Tate,
managing director of Chelsea Digital Media, says the club does not see
any commercial opportunity in taking over its own live TV rights. He
believes the real future lies in technology, broadband developments and
mobile communications.

'Among the core age group of 13- to 25-year-olds, there is much more
demand for mobile content than TV services. They want to see clips of
goals, not live matches,' says Tate. 'Mobile technology is an incredibly
democratic way of receiving content; you download only what you want to
see.'

Building allegiances

Tate recently signed a deal with Thai mobile company True Mobile. Thais
have long been aficionados of English football, and most support
Manchester United or Liverpool. Yet Tate is confident that as long as
Chelsea continue last season's Premiership success, Thais and other
foreign fans will easily switch their allegiance.

A belief in the mobile platform as a way of exploiting content was key
to the choice of Samsung as Chelsea's shirt sponsor, according to
Tate.

The £50m deal was negotiated by chief executive Peter Kenyon, who
brought in Vodafone as Manchester United's shirt sponsor when at the
club.

Tate also sees big overseas expansion opportunities for Chelsea TV,
mainly in video-on-demand, and does not believe a lack of live rights is
a barrier.

'We can show all Chelsea's games on Chelsea TV eight hours after the end
of the match, and with the time differences, that fits in nicely with
the Far East,' he says.

China's huge population and Japan's wealth and Anglophilia have so far
made the Far East the most popular market for English clubs' overseas
ambitions. But the US, with its linguistic and cultural similarities, is
starting to be seen as having equal, if not greater, potential. So it is
no surprise to see Chelsea spend their first summer as English champions
there, while Manchester United toured the US in the previous two
pre-seasons.

Glazer, who also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers gridiron team, is
particularly keen to crack the US market. Aside from its well-developed
pay-TV habit, the country houses most of the world's big sport sponsors
and advertisers.

Having usurped Manchester United's domination of the Premiership,
Chelsea must now challenge United for the hearts, and cash, of its
overseas fans.

Its ambitions to be a global brand rest on the outcome.

DATA FILE - FOOTBALL CLUB TV CHANNELS

Celtic

Celtic TV is sold by Setanta in a £14-a-month Sky package that
includes live coverage of all Scottish Premiership games. It costs
£6.99 a month on ntl:home.

Glasgow Rangers

Rangers TV is sold in a similar £14-a-month package. Ulster-based
fans are being targeted as subscribers. A daily news show and a phone-in
are among the channel's regular programmes.

Chelsea

Chelsea TV costs £6 a month. The subscriber base is claimed to
have grown by 50% since the Premiership win. The channel is available to
27m homes in 17 territories.

Liverpool

Liverpool.tv was launched in 2001 as an internet TV channel. It offers
premium content including match highlights, player interviews and press
conference coverage for £4.99 a month.