Premier League Games,

[redrus]

I really can't see this, yeah its a great idea but, really, a whole game on a mobile phone....? Maybe if I was stuck in the wilds somewhere but, then I probably wouldn't get a signal would I....

The Observer;

The race to put Premier League football games on to mobile phones has pitted BSkyB against TWI, the west London-based sports production group and stable mate of the maker of The Vicar of Dibley, as the mobile phone networks shy away from bidding for exclusive rights to the games.

If Sky is successful that would mean it has snapped up parts of all three types of rights auctioned by the Premier League - TV, online and mobile. The right to put highlights of Premier League matches on handsets is held exclusively by mobile groups 3 and Vodafone, which joined with Sky, which wanted to put games online, and bid £100m for the combined internet and mobile rights in 2003.

The UK's newest mobile network, 3, already uses TWI, which takes live feeds from the games and re-purposes them as mobile highlights for its Premier League service. Vodafone uses both TWI and Sky for its football content.

That contract will terminate at the end of the 2006/7 season and a week ago the Premier League started looking for buyers for the next licence, with bids due in by the end of the month. The right to show games on mobile phones is the last piece of the Premier League jigsaw to be put in place. Already the TV and online packages have been snapped up.

While the value of Premiership TV rights has rocketed since the league's inception 14 years ago, the price tag for the mobile phone rights is likely to be only around £10m, industry insiders say.

The Premier League had hoped to get an auction going for mobile phone rights between the five UK mobile phone networks - 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone. But since the last set of rights was sold, a new generation of mobile data services, including news alerts and club-specific services, has sprung up, making exclusive access to highlights a less valuable commodity. SkySports News is even available as a streamed TV channel on some handsets.

As a result the mobile networks are wary of bidding in the auction of mobile rights. Instead they are looking to sign non-exclusive deals with either TWI or BSkyB depending on which firm wins out.

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