By Mark Baber
May 9 – Indian sports broadcaster Ten Sports has agreed a 3-season deal with the Football Federation of Australia (FFA) to broadcast Australia’s top tier competition – the Hyundai A-League – across the Indian sub-continent, from this October.
The Hyundai A league has 10 teams, nine from Australia and one from New Zealand and Ten Sports, part of the Zee Network, will broadcast 86 matches per season including the five games of the final series playoffs as well as weekly highlights of the league and 10 games of the FFA Cup for each of the three seasons.
Commenting on the deal Ten Sports CEO Rajesh Sethi said: “At Ten Sports we endeavour to give our viewers the best of football action from across the globe and we are proud to add the A-League and the FFA Cup to our bouquet of premier football content. Australian football has grown leaps and bounds and offers to Ten Sports and Ten Action a different dimension to the existing portfolio. This world class football programming will be available live during the day time on weekends. A lot of top stars have started plying their trade in the A-League and we will closely work to promote the A-League, its teams and players across the Indian subcontinent. “
FFA CEO David Gallop commented: “Football Federation Australia (FFA) is delighted that Ten Sports will be broadcasting the Hyundai A-League and the FFA Cup across the sub-continent for the next three seasons. This is fantastic news for Australian football and deepens our engagement with the Asian region. The A-League is in the top three professional competitions in Asia for playing standard and sporting entertainment, and there’s a growing audience in the region keen to follow our clubs and marquee players. I thank Ten Sports for its commitment to the A-League and we look forward to connecting with football fans in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Australian football is enjoying a huge period of growth and that’s reflected in our global TV reach, which includes important broadcasters in Europe, North America and Asia.”
The deal was brokered by the FFA’s distributor, Singapore-based World Sport Group, who are also the marketing partner of the Asian Football Confederation and the ASEAN Football Federation.
Ten claims to reach 140 million households across the Indian sub-continent.
This latest deal means that Ten Action, the network’s football-centric channel will now be offering Indian fans Hyundai A-League alongside UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa league, UEFA Super Cup, French League, I-League, Brazilian League, Skybet Football League, Capital One Cup, Copa Del Rey, German Cup, Coppa Italia and club TV programming.
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