Copyright and Related Rights: Bridging sports & fandom

Michael Jordan’s 1988 Slam Dunk Contest. Joe Frazier vs. Muhammad Ali. Hidilyn Diaz’s landmark Olympic win. The UP Fighting Maroons’ historic Final Four entry.  History is littered with extraordinary moments in sports, but did you know these moments would have gone unseen were it not for intellectual property?

The Philippines will be front and center of one of the biggest regional sporting events this year as it hosts the 2019 SEA Games across four cities. Thousands of sports fans all over Asia are expected to tune in via satellite or internet, to watch the biennial event but few will ponder the fact that they’re able to enjoy the games because of copyright & related rights.

The right to broadcast and communication to the public, are part of copyright and related rights, and thus play a huge role in making sports a global phenomenon.

Knowing the crucial role of their media rights in growing the sport and their league, sports organizers understandably raise the stakes in its sale.

The 2019 SEA Games (managed by the Southeast Asian Games Federation), for example, are drawing two major bids to secure its broadcasting rights: one from an unnamed Spanish broadcasting firm, and another from Pangilinan-owned TV5.

The sports division of TV5, ESPN5, has carved out a niche in acquiring broadcasting rights from organizers of highly anticipated sporting events, like the Philippine Basketball Association and the United Football League. The channel itself was named so after TV5 inked a partnership with ESPN, the premier US sports programming network, allowing it to broadcast the NFL and the X Games.

FIFA, the governing body of the World Cup holds media rights for the games, was said to have raked in more than $ 3 billion for selling TV rights in various territories during the 2018 World Cup. The Cup’s viewership was estimated to 3.2 billion people.

These revenues and viewership are standard for the World Cup, being the most widely viewed and followed the sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games.

For FIFA, and other sports associations enjoying high viewership, the sale of broadcasting and media rights are their bread and butter. Broadcasting organizations pay top dollar to have exclusive broadcast of sports, and they, in turn, earn royalties from selling their exclusive footage to other media channels.

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This article is part two of a three-part series on the theme of the IPOPHL for the National Intellectual Property Rights Month 2019 -- IP in Education and Sports.

Read the first part: Mark of a champion: How Manny Pacquiao is earning millions from IP