VTV officially buys the television rights to the 2018 World Cup

Accordingly, VTV and partner Infront Sports & Media have reached an agreement and are expected to sign a contract to purchase television copyright.World Cup 2018on today, June 8. After signing, VTV will announce to the press to widely inform the public. VTV is the only television unit in Vietnam that owns all 64 matches taking place in Russia.

Thus, this is the third consecutive time VTV has purchased the World Cup broadcasting rights in Vietnam. The previous two times, VTV bought them for 3.5 million USD (2010) and 7 million USD (2014). This time, VTV and its partners did not disclose the amount, but it certainly was not cheaper than 4 years ago.

Vietnam has become the last country to own the copyright for the 2018 World Cup. According to FIFA's announcement, as of June 2, 218 out of 219 countries and territories have owned the copyright for this tournament.

According to a VTV leader, this is the most difficult negotiation to buy the World Cup copyright that they have ever encountered. The biggest problem is still the price offered by the distributor Infront Sports & Media. It is known that Infront Sports & Media has "offered" at 14 million USD. That is a price that VTV cannot meet because it is too expensive. This station affirms that it will not buy at any price.

The negotiations have lasted from 2016 until now but the two sides have not found a common voice. According to some analysts, because Infront Sports & Media is a FIFA backer, it does not have to buy the World Cup television rights through an intermediary, which means that this partner is willing to not make concessions or reduce the selling price as VTV "bargained".

The knot was only untied a few days before the World Cup started. According to some sources, VTV was sponsored by a large corporation with 5 million USD, however, the representative of Vietnam Television has not officially commented on this.

Anyway, VTV finally has the broadcasting rights for the 2018 World Cup. The station said that all 64 matches taking place in Russia will be broadcast live on its broadcast channels, most likely VTV6.

So, at this point, Vietnamese football fans no longer have to worry about having to watch the "illegal" World Cup on the internet, but can live in the atmosphere of "eating football, sleeping football" with VTV for the next month.

Meanwhile, domestic television stations want to share the 2018 World Cup, VTV is always ready to cooperate, in the spirit of serving viewers but still ensuring business principles. Most likely, domestic stations will have to rebroadcast VTV's entire broadcast (including advertisements before, during and after the match).

Since October 2016, Infront Sports & Media, a Singapore-based company, has been assigned by FIFA to distribute the 2018 World Cup copyright in Asia and has contacted VTV and other partners in Vietnam to introduce the sale of the 2018 World Cup copyright.

Since then, the two sides have gone through many negotiations but have not found a common voice on the price. Infront Sports & Media is a FIFA backer so there is no intermediary, so it has always been very "tough" and has not given in to VTV.