Singaporean telecommunications company SingTel has acquired rights for the 2014 Fifa World Cup national football team tournament.
The deal with Fifa, football’s world governing body, has been described as “exclusive” in various reports, but SingTel will have to share coverage with pay-television broadcaster StarHub under the Singapore Media Development Authority's cross-carriage rule.
The rights cover live and on-demand coverage of all 64 matches across all media platforms. SingTel will make the opening match, both semi-finals and the final available on free-to-air platforms.
Existing SingTel mioTV service customers will be able to watch the tournament for free if they extend their subscriptions to certain football packages for 24 months. Customers who do not want to extend their subscriptions can watch the World Cup for S$105 (€60/$83), while the cost for those who are not subscribers will be S$112.
“Our competitor's World Cup offer sets a precedent for operators to acquire exclusive content at high prices to lock customers into extended contracts, which runs counter to the cross-carriage regime's objectives,” StarHub said.
The Media Development Authority added: “Given that SingNet has acquired the broadcast rights for the World Cup 2014 on an exclusive basis, it will have to cross-carry the content on the StarHub platform. This means that, just like English Premier League matches, consumers will have to contract with SingNet in order to be able to access World Cup 2014 matches, but will be able to watch the matches on the pay-TV platforms of both SingNet and StarHub. The authority has also required that the four key matches of the World Cup 2014 (opening, semi-finals, and finals) be made available on free-to-air television channels.”
SingTel and StarHub had been in talks with Fifa over the rights for more than a year.