MUMBAI – In yet another path-breaking initiative, the Indian Premier League (IPL) and its licensing partner Global Cricket Ventures (GCV) today announced an agreement with vRock Mobile Communications Pvt Ltd (vRock Mobile), which has acquired the sole and exclusive worldwide SMS, MMS and IVR rights for a period of five years. vRock Mobile will have the exclusive rights to utilize CDMA, GSM, GPRS, MMS, WAP, EDGE, 3G and any other mobile or desktop technology, capable of sending or receiving SMS/MMS alerts, SMS/MMS contest/ activations and live audio commentary / IVR platform.

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MUMBAI – The Indian Premier League have signed a broadcast deal with ITV for UK. IPL 3 which is to be held from March 12, can be seen in the United Kingdom on ITV, the Twenty20 League’s commissioner Lalit Modi announced yesterday.

“The UK market has traditionally been very difficult to crack and Sky TV has always been difficult to deal with and that’s why this deal with ITV, which is the oldest commercial broadcaster in the UK, is very huge for us,” said Modi at a media conference here.
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The IOC announced today that it will offer a selection of the best moments of Vancouver 2010 as video-on-demand on the IOC’s channel on YouTube™: www.youtube.com/olympic.

In the United States, highlight clips will be made available on www.NBCOlympics.com and www.UniversalSports.com.

IOC Communications Director Mark Adams said: “Our mission is to make broadcast footage of the Olympic Games available to the widest possible audience. The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games was an important moment in Olympic history in terms of online and mobile phone broadcast, and we want to ensure that people have the opportunity to re-live the magic of the Games either through our freely available digital channel or through our rights-holding broadcast partners’ platforms.”
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MUMBAI – YouTube the official online broadcaster for IPL 3 has signed five more sponsors in addition to HP who had signed a deal with them earlier as reported by Sports Biz Asia.

YouTube have signed five new sponsors Videocon, Hero Honda, Samsung, HUL and HSBC as sponsors for IPL 3. The deals are said top be valued at $1 million (Rs.48 million).

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VAUXHALL, South London – The 16^th Asian Games through its broadcast agreement with Radio Guangdong to produce China’s first all-English sports talk show – Asian Games Live! – has expanded its broadcast footprint to include London-based World Radio Network.

The Asian Games are the second largest sports event in the world after the Summer Olympic Games and is hosted by Jeff Ruffolo, a three-time Summer Olympic Sportscaster for US-based Westwood One Radio.

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DOHA – AFC has appointed Qatar’s reputable television channel Al Kass and Al Dawri as the Host Broadcasters the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011.

Al Kass, who specialise in high-quality sports coverage in the West Asian region, will deliver host broadcast services for the continental showcase of football next year from January 7-29 for all the 32 matches.

For the first time in the AFC Asian Cup’s history, all the matches will be telecast in High Definition (HD), which reflects hosts Qatar’s aim to provide state-of-the-art facilities for the competition.

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MUMBAI – Leading news channels in the country today threatened not to cover the third edition of the Indian Premier League in protest against the “arbitrary” guidelines and certain contentious clauses regarding footage of the Twenty20 event.

The News Broadcasters Association, which has 34 channels as its members, said in a statement that the IPL authorities and the official broadcaster of the event, in their meeting today, “arbitrarily” refused to abide by the 2008 norms which was endorsed by NBA.
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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A social networking campaign by Formula One fans has swayed Singapore Grand Prix organisers into creating a new Premier Walkabout ticket, allowing greater access to this year’s event for roving spectators on a budget.

Instead of paying $767 for a grandstand seat, the $245 three-day ticket will offer fans various viewing points around the circuit, including designated areas right at the heart of the street circuit around the pit lane and entertainment area. “The Premier Walkabout has opened up a niche for a new group of fans as the grandstand prices could be prohibitive for some of the real F1 fanatics,” Singapore GP’s executive director Michael Roche told Wednesday’s Straits Times.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Soccer World Cup sponsor MTN <MTNJ.J> said on Wednesday it had launched a content portal to enable its more than 100 million users to watch near live match highlights of the finals on their mobile handsets.

MTN is one of the sponsors of the tournament, giving it exclusive mobile content rights.

The portal called MTN Play, would enable MTN users to also watch video clips of their favourite teams and follow their teams’ performance during the tournament.

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded broadcast rights for the Olympic Games in 2010 to Canal 22 in Mexico, it was announced today.

Canal 22 has acquired non-exclusive free-to-air television and radio broadcast rights for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, with a commitment to broadcast live and highlights coverage of the Games.

IOC President Jacques Rogge said, “The IOC is very happy to announce that through this agreement with Canal 22, the Vancouver Games will be broadcast on free television in Mexico.”

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