Net, new goose with golden eggs

MARCH 30: In the wake of television, the Internet has become the new battlefield for football broadcasting rights for matches, with perhap...

MARCH 30: In the wake of television, the Internet has become the new battlefield for football broadcasting rights for matches, with perhaps millions of dollars in extra earnings for clubs and other operators in the field.

“All indications are that the Internet is going to be asignificant future platform for the broadcasting of football,” said Robert Elstone, an accountant with Deloitte and Touche specialising in football clubs.

“That really explains a lot of the activity that is going on in sport and Internet at the moment. Football is one of the most powerful deliverers of ratings and viewership and the Internet will be a fantastic platform to exploit that,” Elstone said.

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For the first time in the history of English football, the Internet question is on the agenda of negotiations for broadcasting rights of the lucrative First Division in the 2001-2002 season.

“The details have yet to be decided, but Internet rightswill be somewhere in the package," said Mike Lee, spokesman of the Premier League, an organism representing Division One clubs.

The negotiations between Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch are due to be concluded next summer.

Both are looking the way of the Internet, in spite of technical problems over video retransmission, risks of bottlenecks and most of all, the poor quality of pictures in the current state of technology.