After paying a reported $100M for the marketing rights
to the Brazilian soccer club Corinthians, TX-based Hicks
Muse Tate & Furst is "now applying a large dose of American-
style sports promotion to ensure its investments pays off,"
according to Andrew Downie of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE.
Corinthians is "only one of a series of investments in clubs
and broadcast rights" Hicks Muse is using to "build what it
hopes will be a sports media empire in South America."
While Brazilian soccer has "long been recognized as home to
many of the world's most talented and exciting soccer
players," off the field, it "had become as well known for
shockingly bad management that missed the worldwide
marketing wave." But Hicks Muse stepped in with Corinthians
last year, and company President Charles Tate said while the
group does not control the team, "What we have done is buy a
license from the club to develop the revenue-producing
aspects of the soccer club." Later this year, Hicks Muse
plans to begin building a new stadium in Sao Paulo with up
to 55,000 seats, and the company "plans to sharply increase
the merchandise, Internet and broadcast rights bought from
the club." Hicks Muse is making additional investments in
Brazilian and Argentinean soccer clubs, which have "provided
the basis" of the company's new cable sports network, PSN,
which debuted Tuesday (See THE DAILY, 2/16). Tate: "All of
these investments are made to acquire soccer content or
acquire rights to soccer content" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 2/17).
