The purpose of this research is to analyze and prospect the changes in the sports media environment and broadcasting rights of professional sports channels, which now reach their 10th anniversary. Most previous studies related to the sports media environment and broadcasting rights, in fact, have been focusing on mega sports events, such as Olympics and World cups. This research therefore examines the relationship between sports and media, particularly highlighting the changes in broadcasting rights of national and international pro sports. The researcher uses the documentation from press reports and several academic institutions as well as those collected from interviews of several people and specialists working in the field while the researcher himself working at the professional sports channel. The collected documentation is used for rather accurate analysis of cases of broadcasting rights contracts. This research is conducted by a Del-Phi method to aim at objectivity and diversity of prospect.
First, with the rise of professional sports channels, scheduling of sports games in the terrestrial networks is decreasing gradually. Mega sports events are mostly broadcasted in the terrestrial networks. In contrast, professional sports channels 해외축구 중계사이트 a wide range of popular national and international pro sports games.
Second, the broadcasting rights fees have been increasing excessively due to competition among professional sports channels. Broadcasting right fees, especially those for international contents such as MLB, K-1 and EPL where Korean players are playing, have been rising rapidly.
In addition, broadcasting rights fees for national sports games have been raising in recent ten years since many professional sports channels are competing to gain exclusive broadcasting rights. This indicates ‘the rise of the market for sports broadcasting rights’.
Third, the research highlights diverse aspects and trends of sports media throughout the analysis of changes in sports media environment and broadcasting rights. Uncertainty within sports broadcasting rights is increasing and there are several factors that lead to this condition. The research therefore is concerned with the rise and decline of sports media due to additional costs, the increase of production costs and broadcasting rights policy. It also highlights inelasticity of broadcasting rights fees and broadcasting profits, limits to profit making of professional sports channels, diversity of broadcasting rights sales along with media changes and changes in the industry structure through the movement of hegemony.
Forth, the prospects on sports broadcasting rights and broadcasting environment are as follows.
- Media will change along with consumers and it will be interactive.
- The media convergence will accelerate and One Source Multi Use (OSMU) will expand.
- Polarization will intensify according to sports content values.
- Broadcasting right fees for popular sports games will increase constantly and this will lead to changes in sales methods of broadcasting rights and those in profit distribution.
- Popular sport game organizations will diversify its business aggressively such as to the media sector in order to maximize broadcasting right profits.
- Unpopular sports events need to improve coverage problems rather than concerning with broadcasting rights profits, by changing from old media to new media. They are also expected to raise sales of content package via mega agencies which have hit contents.
- The rise of broadcasting right fees will worsen the management of broadcasting stations. This will lead to changes in broadcasting environment, such as collusion, convergence and merger between Medias. Media also will seek diverse ways to increase profits in order to reduce its dependency on advertisement and license fees.
- Agencies with hit contents will become the key figure within the market of broadcasting rights sales. They are also expected to play the major role within the market by pursuing business diversity and convergence and merge of sports media industries.