MUMBAI: Neo Cricket, the dedicated cricket channel from Neo Sports broadcast stable, will begin its journey as an all sports channel starting 3 June under the new name of Neo Prime amid intense competition from ESPN Star Sports, Zee?s Ten bouquet of channels and a new entrant Sony Six.

The channel is being built after its cricket content has depleted following the loss of the marquee India cricket rights. The sports broadcasting company has been mulling converting into an all sports channel for quite some time as it is left with only one cricket property, Asia Cup, ever since its contract with BCCI got terminated in December 2011. The Bangladesh Cricket Board rights also expired in April.

Neo Sports Broadcast has a good volume of non-cricket sports which it will distribute across its two-channel network. While Neo Prime will telecast mass sports including cricket, Neo Sports will cater to more niche and special interest products. Plans are also afloat to offer Neo Prime in High Definition.

"We have been planning on the rebranding before a couple of months but it goes through a process as we need Ministry of Information & Broadcasting?s approval which we got on Friday," Neo Sports Broadcast COO Prasanna Krishnan tells Indiantelevision.com.

Neo Sports Broadcast will focus on Football, Badminton, Tennis, Hockey and Golf to drive the growth of the two Neo channels.

In football, Neo has the rights for Copa America, German Bundesliga, Serie A and the crown jewel ? Uefa Euro 2012, the rights of which it acquired after forking out $11 million.

Hockey is another sport the broadcaster is betting big on. It had recently picked up the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup rights for five years. It also airs World Series Hockey, the franchise based hockey league co-promoted by sister concern Nimbus Sport.

Its tennis lineup comprises French Open, Davis Cup and Fed Cup while in golf it owns the rights to US PGA Tour, in addition to BWF Badminton Super Series in badminton.

"We couldn?t continue with the Neo Cricket name with the properties that we had. We had a lot of other sports content," Krishnan says.

Neo Cricket was logical when it had possession of the BCCI rights (which are now with Star India). Admits Krishnan, "Earlier on with the BCCI rights we always had enough of cricket including domestic cricket. So we needed a dedicated channel because of the volumes. But now in the current situation it makes more sense for us to become an all sports channel. We are also having the problem of scheduling particularly during the weekend wherein we had more content than we can could show at a point of time."

Prasanna also points out that other networks like Ten and ESS have channels in addition to cricket that can be used to air events in case of overlapping, something that was missing in Neo since it had only one all sports channel. "We are changing this with our rebranding."

ESPN Star Sports has two channels apart from a cricket channel. Similarly, Ten has Ten Action+ and Ten Golf. "We were having enough live content but were unable to utilise it. So it seemed to be a sensible strategy going forward," he explains.

The rebranding is timely as it precedes the 2012 Uefa European Football Championship, Neo?s biggest sporting property. Uefa Euro, hosted by Poland and Ukraine, will take place between 8 June and 1 July.

"We will do marketing campaigns to announce the rebranding. But we also have an advantage as it is happening in the middle of Uefa Euro which will attract a lot of viewers," says Prasanna.

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Neo Cricket set to rebrand as Neo Prime

MUMBAI: One World Sports, the Asian focused sports network in the United States, has extended its exclusive North American multi-platform rights agreement with Japan?s J. League, the Korea Professional Football League (K-League) and the Chinese Football Association Super League (CSL).

The sports network has entered into a three-year agreement with World Sport Group (WSG), which has the global media rights for the three properties.

Each weekend, One World Sports will feature three games from the J. League, two games from the CSL and one game from the K-League. This is in addition to two games from the Australian League (A-League). The combination of leagues offers a full host of top-notch soccer from Asia?s leading soccer leagues. The games are presented live whenever possible to add to the real-time excitement of the match.

"We are so pleased with the extension of our J. League, K-League and CSL football rights," said ONE World Sports Senior Vice President Programming Rick Jemison. "We are committed to bringing Asia?s best soccer matches to its fans in North America. It is a tremendous vote of confidence for Asia?s preeminent soccer leagues to choose us to continue to deliver the live and exclusive coverage of their games."

The J. League includes 18 teams and is the top division of the Japanese professional football league. Its season is played from March to December and consists of matches played in double round-robin (home and away) format of 34 games each.

The CSL is the highest and most prestigious level of professional soccer in China. The league has 16 teams. Three clubs competed in this season?s AFC Champions League, Asia?s premier soccer club competition, with Guangzhou Evergrande qualifying for the round of 16.

The K-League is South Korea?s top professional soccer league. It has a proven history of excellence, with four of the league?s 16 teams competing in the 2012 AFC Champions League and Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma and Ulsan Hyundai advancing to the round of 16.

MUMBAI: IMG Worldwide and Dogus, Group, one of Turkey?s largest private sector conglomerates, are forming an equal joint venture company in Turkey.

The purpose of the JV between Dogus, and IMG will be to create and develop a broad range of sports, fashion and entertainment projects to be implemented in Turkey and the Turkic Republics including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

In India, Reliance Industries Ltd. has a 50:50 JV with IMG, a global sports, fashion and entertainment company. The JV has 30-year rights for basketball and 15-year rights for football.

The joint venture in Turkey is part of the continuing transformation of IMG as a global presence in high-growth geographic areas with high profile, successful partners in each of the countries where they have established relationships. The company now has joint ventures in Brazil with EBX Group and in China with CCTV.

Initial plans for the JV in Turkey include the creation of sports academies, camps and clinics; the building, construction, ownership and operation of stadiums, sports and entertainment venues; staging, representing, managing, owning and selling fashion related events; representation for sale of sports media and sponsorship rights; and staging, representation, management, ownership and sale of sports and events including football, tennis, sailing regattas, golf, motor racing, action sports, beach games, mass participation events, cycling, triathlons among others.

The JV has been agreed to and signed by Dogus chairman Ferit Sahenk, one of the country?s most successful businessmen, and IMG chairman and CEO Mike Dolan.

Says Dolan, "Turkey is now playing a significantly greater role in the world of sports and entertainment. We believe that we have a number of outstanding opportunities ahead of us here in Turkey. We have a vision ? to bring together IMG?s global reach and proven expertise in high profile sporting events, stadia management, fashion events and media rights, with the impressive reach of one of Turkey?s most successful conglomerates, Dogus, Group."

Adds Dogus Holding chairman S,ahenk, "As part of this joint venture agreement we signed with IMG, we aim to establish a fully equipped sports school with a professional team, in order to raise world class athletes. Thanks to our venture with IMG, we are setting our sights on forming a brand-new structure, where young athletes coming from all over Turkey will be trained and raised as world-class athletes. The athletes will be able to compete and successfully represent Turkey in the global arena. The athletic training will be accompanied with foreign language and academic education."