This is what Danny and I aligned on very early. Eleven Sports executive chairman and chief executive Marc Watson, pictured in Portugal on 19th September. We want to bring entertainment value to this market. The rest of the time I travel around the world to all our territories, together with our MDs and the rest of the teams to develop the business, to have discussions with key rights holders, to go to conferences, etc. But at the same time we have no time to lose. We are super-ambitious at Eleven, we are very fast-growing, and it means that you always need to be on the ball, especially as we have businesses all around the world.
It means a lot of traveling. People want to see you and want to have a face-to-face discussion with you. And also you need to be there locally to really understand the dynamics of the market. Some small things can make a big difference.
Sometimes markets can become very interesting suddenly; Portugal is a very good one. We were always interested but when you want to enter a market, you need to have really killer rights. At that time, [Cristiano] Ronaldo was still at [Real] Madrid, so for us that was definitely killer content. And then you have a window of opportunity to enter a market and you buy more rights — some key rights, some smaller rights — and then you have an offer to start.
Drawing on those connections has helped the company scale up quicker than many of its digital rivals, enabling it to secure widespread distribution in the process. They all know that within a year we have full distribution. Never, not even when we started, has there been a difficulty. After 25 years [they have] 1. Same in Belgium; we are the only channel there with full distribution in the market.
Not even Eurosport has full distribution there. From a blank sheet of paper the network has morphed into a fully fledged global operation — and it is still early days. We have proven in other markets that we are successful in reaching out to the fans. For example, in Poland, when we entered the market, everybody told us there were already enough established sports broadcasters and there was no way we could build a good business there.
Now,18 months later, we are number one in the country and, last year, won the award as Broadcaster of the Year after just 12 months in operation. It shows that we are able to deliver the quality of the products tailored to the needs of the local fans, as well as build a brand in a very short time frame. How do we do it? First of all, by engaging fans. We do that by using social and interacting with the fans. But we really listen to our fans and involve them in our decision-making in terms of the kind of rights we add and matches we [air].
In most countries, we have regular polls where we ask people what they want us to air. We will do that in the States. We really believe in digital engagement and also in cooperation with all the major U. In all the other markets, we are working with all the major sport-news websites, publishers, etc. Eleven Sports arrives at an interesting time for the U.
Why do you think Eleven Sports can buck this trend and succeed? First of all, we believe, because we have a global footprint, we are a very interesting partner for rightsholders to work with. We know the industry very well; we have a very good network, which means that we are always able to get the best rights for the best prices.
There are definitely synergies in having a global network. Where other networks need people to run one channel, we do it with And yet we are winning the awards for being the best broadcaster. People that have issues with [OWS] have to contact [its] management, but we have no shares or relationship beyond the acquisition of distribution assets. Eleven Sports 1 will be dedicated to football, while Eleven Sports 2 will broadcast fight sports, eSports, extreme sports and any additional football coverage.
Xandr launches Monetize deals platform digitaltveurope. Eleven Sports to launch two new channels in the UK. Tags: Eleven Sports , UK. Most Recent Sky Deutschland extends deal with Turner.
Sky Deutschland has extended and expanded its distribution partnership with Turner Broadcast.
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