Pirated signals threaten Inter-Forever’s dominance of closed-circuit U.S. market
Amongst U.S. soccer fans, “Inter-Forever Sports” are fightin’ words. The Miami-based company enraged American fans last year by embargoing rights to the 1996 CONCACAF Gold Cup and releasing only live closed-circuit TV rights to the domestic market while putting on a shambles of a competition that embarrassed the U.S. Soccer Federation. Fans, many of whom live hundreds of miles away from the main population centers targeted for closed-circuit distribution, had little or no chance of seeing the games, since Inter-Forever did not bother to make the games available to English-language cable outlets or C-band satellite owners. It did sell delayed rights to Prime Deportiva (now Fox Sports Americas). Now the company American fans love to hate is engaged in a “War of the Dishes.” Earlier this month, Inter-Forever, who owns the TV rights to El Salvador’s home games, found itself usurped. Its brokers expected to make a killing on the June 8 El Salvador-Mexico qualifier but instead they discovered that establishments had picked up the game off a new Mexican satellite service. Sometimes Inter-Forever distributes games itself, at other times it re-sells the rights to brokers. Establishments are charged between $200 and $1000 per match dependent on capacity, and must have a decoder box and C-band satellite dish to receive the signal. Two days before the match, a new Mexican small-dish system ù Sky Satellite ù announced it would show the match live in Mexico as part of its free introductory service. This threw Inter-Forever into a panic. Since Sky Satellite began operations in Mexico several months ago, a steady stream of Sky receivers and related equipment had been crossing the U.S.-Mexican border for installation in American homes and businesses. With a special 24-inch dish and its antenna, the Sky signals can be received illegally in many parts of the United States. What Inter-Forever feared, happened. The illegal Sky dishes cut deeply into its market, as many Mexican fans found businesses or homes to see the game and bypassed those outlets that had legally leased rights to show it. The Los Angeles newspaper
La Opinion has advertisements of bars promoting their Sky systems. In Southern California, where such matches are normally shown in hundreds of small establishments, Event Entertainment Inc., had bought the rights and decided to show the game in large venues, because several South American qualifiers were being shown the same day.
El Salvador-Mexico game is a bust
It was a bust. Angered by high ticket prices, in some cases more than double what most bars and restaurants charge, Southern California fans ù who, Inter-Forever executive Stefano Tarconi says, represent more than 60 percent of the U.S. market for such a game ù stayed away from the large arenas and either found a pirated outlet or simply didn’t watch the game. Ticket sales were so slow that a telecast at the Forum in Inglewood was canceled. The Pond in Anaheim and the Cal-State Dominguez Hills velodrome each attracted about 1,500 fans, and the Los Angeles Sports Arena sold approximately 4,000 tickets. Event Entertainment president Rick Kulis said his company invested more than $600,000, including equipment costs, arena rentals and a rights fee for the Mexico-El Salvador match. “It was an absolute disaster,” he said. “We lost more than a quarter of a million dollars. Of the 8,000 or so tickets we sold, I’d say only about 10 percent were Mexican fans.” Kulis said he sent out five investigators to find establishments showing the match illegally. Ten such pirated operations were found, and Kulis has written to the FCC enforcement department for action. He estimated “as many as 100” outlets could have carried the game illicitly. Another promoter brought the match to Spartan Stadium in San Jose, home of the Clash, where it was billed as a doubleheader with an MLS game against Kansas City. The telecast drew about 3,000 fans ù at about $30 per ticket, a far too small a crowd to cover rights and equipment costs of about $250,000. Inter-Forever faces the same piracy problem for the El Salvador-USA game since Televisa, whose programming is available on Sky Satellite, has rights to show El Salvador’s home games in Mexico ù rights it bought from Inter-Forever. For years, Inter-Forever has brokered rights to selected matches to closed-circuit operators, and so lucrative is this market that it has spurned attempts by Univision, the U.S. Soccer Federation and several promoters to buy the U.S. rights and package games for over-the-air or cable distribution in the U.S. Offers of $100,000 per game for U.S. away qualifiers in Costa Rica and El Salvador were spurned. Univision has scheduled a one-hour highlights program on the day of the match, but there will be no live television either over-the-air or on cable.
by Soccer America
Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney
