Football follows advertising revenue online

By Kevin Fylan

LONDON (Reuters) - The Internet-only broadcast of England's game in Ukraine is just the start of a trend given the migration of viewers online and the advertising and sponsorship money chasing them, the company behind the deal said on Monday.

Although born out of necessity, following the collapse of Irish broadcaster Setanta in June, offering the October 10 World Cup qualifier on a pay-per-view basis online should bring in a bigger audience than it would otherwise have had, Kentaro boss Philipp Grothe said.

Coming a week after news that spending on Internet advertising in Britain had jumped ahead of television for the first time, the deal made perfect sense, while offering "fantastic value" for consumers, according to Grothe.

"We go where the money is and the money is already on the net," Grothe told Reuters in an interview.

"So the money is on the Internet, the viewers are on the Internet and now we are bringing the content where the money is."

He added: "Since it's fairly new, I would say we tried to be as reasonable as possible.

"If you look at pay per view in the United States, a boxing event is 50 dollars, while in the UK it's 20 pounds or more. (This deal) is fantastic value. You can't say this is unreasonable."

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