The IMG agency and digital media company Perform have formed FC Diez Media, a joint venture which will advise the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) on the commercial rights to its club competitions.
The first task for the new company will be to tender the audiovisual rights for the Copa Libertadores across the four-year cycle spanning 2019 to 2022 in the 10 countries that make up Conmebol.
FC Diez Media will separately tender the production rights for the Libertadores and then look to sell the global rights within the next few months.
In September, Conmebol selected a consortium made up of IMG agency and Perform as its new partner for the commercialisation of its club competitions, stating that the offer was worth a guaranteed minimum of $1.4bn (€1.13bn).
Perform, together with IMG’s Trans World Sport division, was one of four bidders shortlisted by Conmebol, alongside Synergy Football, a joint venture between the Infront and Synergy Sport agencies; the MP & Silva agency; and Brazilian sports marketing agency Sport Promotion.
IMG and Perform will provide professional consulting services in the marketing, sale and after-sale of the commercial assets of the Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana and the Recopa, which features the winners of each competition, along with other tournaments.
IMG and Perform are creating a dedicated team for FC Diez Media, which is financed and resourced on a 50/50 basis. The two parties said this will provide Conmebol with best in class tools to implement the commercial programming of the club competitions in a way that is new and unrivalled in the marketplace today.
Felix Alvarez-Garmon, senior vice-president in Latin America for IMG Media, said: “We are very much looking forward to innovating and evolving the commercial opportunities across the whole spectrum of Conmebol’s club competitions.
“These range from game presentation and competition format to digital communication and rights segmentation. It’s an incredibly exciting project for the FC Diez Media team to be a part of.”