Serie A side AS Roma partnered with Snapchat to produce a weekly show on the mobile platform's discovery page. AS Roma is the first Italian football team to launch a weekly show on Snapchat. Fans who subscribe will be able to watch exclusive player challenges and highlight reels (SPORT TECHIE, 1/18).
Japanese pay-TV broadcaster WOWOW acquired the exclusive streaming and pay-TV rights to broadcast Euro 2020 across Japan. Starting with the opening match on June 12, WOWOW will broadcast all 51 matches through the final on July 12. Subscribers can also watch all the action on-demand after each match via "WOWOW Members On Demand" (BROADCASTING CABLE, 1/17).
The World Rally Championship extended its partnership with BT Sport. The extension is a multi-year deal and will increase live coverage from all 14 rounds. BT Sport will screen all WRC TV's programs across its various platforms, featuring live action, a pre-event magazine show, nightly highlights and a post-rally review (WRC).
Cardiff-based digital agency Sotic unveiled a new website for Six Nations Rugby. Sotic has been working with Six Nations Rugby since '08 and the launch of the new website, which is built on Sotic’s "super-charged version of WordPress CMS," comes after Six Nations Rugby announced Guinness as its new title sponsor in a six-year deal (Sotic).
DAZN Group will move into a new office at White Rose Office Park in Leeds. The digital sports media company will take up the 40,000 square feet space on Jan. 28. The media center will be "home to employees from across the company's consumer brands" (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 1/21).
Digital viewership figures for India's cricket tour of Australia show it was the "most-watched overseas cricket series for any digital platform in India." According to official figures, the matches during the tour on the official streaming platform were watched by 50 million viewers overall, with a total viewership time of 7 billion minutes, 4.5 billion minutes more than during the tour of England. India played a series of three T20Is and as many ODIs, in addition to a four-match test series in Australia (TIMES OF INDIA, 1/21).
India's second-most popular league, the Pro Kabaddi League, faced "major headwinds" in its sixth season, resulting in viewership "plummeting" 25.8% across India. According to data from the Broadcast Audience Research Council India, PKL6 recorded a total of 1.18 million impressions across 75 matches, compared with 1.6 million impressions last season (ECONOMIC TIMES, 1/18).
Tripleplay announced IP-Partners as a new distribution partner in France from January. Run by former Tripleplay Country Manager Philippe Lemaire, IP-Partners will be distributing Tipleplay products exclusively in the region (Tripleplay).
