National broadcaster acquires World Cup rights with corporate sponsorship

Vietnam Television (VTV) has acquired exclusive broadcasting rights for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in the country with sponsorship from VPBank, Vingroup, LienVietPostBank, Techcombank, Saigon-Hanoi Bank, and T&T Group.

All 64 matches in the tournament held November 20-December 18 will be broadcast live by the national broadcaster on its VTV2, VTV3, VTV5 and VTV Can Tho channels as well as its VTVGo app.

Any agency seeking to share the broadcasting right must be approved by FIFA and reach an agreement with VTV, the state-run broadcaster said.

Vietnam had obtained broadcasting rights for previous Word Cup editions at $1 million in 2002, $2 million in 2006, $2.7 million in 2010, $7 million in 2014 and $12 million in 2018.

This figure this year has not been disclosed so far, but Infront Sports & Media, the agency in charge of the tournament broadcasting rights for the Asia-Pacific region, had once offered a price of $15 million. Besides, VTV is expected to spend an additional $2 million on technical tasks to receive the signals from Qatar.

Among the sponsors, VPBank has announced its contribution of VND100 billion ($4.3 million), but other sponsorship arrangements have not been revealed.

While VPBank is said to be VTV’s largest sponsor for the World Cup, the bank has said it will not receive any priority in advertisements on VTV for its support; it would pay for advertising just like other businesses.