Neo Sports to show Euro2012 from Poland/Ukraine

The Nimbus Communications owned Neo Sports channel has bought the exclusive rights for the 2012 European Championships from European football governing body UEFA. The rights are for the whole Indian sub-continent which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives and Bhutan. Earlier the rights had been with ESPN-Star Sports.

The package of the two-year deal between UEFA and Neo Sports includes not only the 2012 UEFA European Championships but also the 2013 UEFA European Under-21 Championship and the 2013 UEFA Women's European Championships. The overall deal is said to be worth around Rs 1 Billion (100 crores).

The 2012 edition of the UEFA European Championships will be co-hosted by Poland and the Ukraine from June 8 to July 1, 2012 across four venues in each hosting nation. Besides the two hosts 14 teams will qualify for the 16 team tournament.

The previous edition in 2008 was telecast live in 203 countries and the average audience figure for a live match exceeded 146 million. There was a substantial increase for the finals where the average audience figure was around 237 million.

Speaking about the acquisition Neo Sports Broadcast Pvt. Ltd COO Prasana Krishnan said, "This acquisition is a significant step towards delivering on the overall brand promise of Neo Sports as a premium sport destination. This is by far one of the most high profile soccer events and will definitely garner high quality viewership for the channel."

Earlier Neo Sports had acquired and shown the 2011 Copa America, the South American Football Championships; while also acquiring the rights of the Tennis French Open (2012 to 2016) and the 2011 Rugby World Cup.