Update: Bharti Airtel has announced that it has bagged exclusive video rights on the mobile platform for UEFA EURO 2012.  Airtel mobile customers across India will have exclusive access to mobile and video content including LIVE streaming from UEFA Euro 2012. In order to watch Euro 2012 matches live on mobile phones, Airtel customers need to SMS ‘TV’ to 54321 and for LIVE scores SMS ‘GOAL’ to 54321. For a subscription charge of Rs. 40 per week Airtel customers will get 20 mins of live stream on 3G and 80 mins on 2G.

Apart from the live stream, Airtel is also offering services such as:

  • Go! Go! Go! Contest – a football contest post based on Euro 2012. The contest is open from 1st June to 1st July 2012. Airtel customers need to answer 3 questions daily on SMS toll free. The winners of the contest stand a chance to  win Sodexo Voucher for 2 ( Rs 1000/- each) on daily basis and Samsung Galaxy H/S (1 every week, worth Rs. 9000) on weekly bases.  Airtel customers can also win the bumper price of all expenses paid trip to Old Trafford (Manchester United) for 2 persons.
  • SMS or MMS score updates – Airtel offers SMS updates on latest scorelines, goals, table standing, player quotes, fans reactions, off-field news and pre-match and post-match analysis. To activate this service users need to SMS GOAL to 54321 (toll free) or USSD – Dial *321*471# (toll free). Airtel will charge Rs. 3/match for the subscription.
  • Games – Airtel has tied up with igmobi to provide games around Euro 2012. To activate the service Airtel customers need to visit airtel.igmobi.com/ar3/e12/. Users will be charged Rs. 99 per game.
  • Mobile Magazine – Airtel has also tied up with MoFutbol, mobile magazine on football, to provide high resolution photo and video stories on Euro 2012 on GPRS enabled handsets via WAP, Video and SMS. To activate the service users need to SMS MOCF to 54321 (toll free) or USSD: Dial *321*212# (toll free)  or visit http://mofutbol.com on their GPRS enabled handsets.

Previously, Airtel had signed a deal with Manchester United for providing exclusive Man Utd. content on Airtel mobiles, as reported by Trak.in.

Earlier:

Neo Sports, has tied-up with iStream.com, a video portal, to provide exclusive live streaming of  UEFA EURO 2012 in India. The live stream of the match on iStream.com will be of the Neo Sports telecast of 2012 UEFA European Football Championship.
Neo Sports is the official exclusive broadcast partner for UEFA EURO 2012 in the Indian Sub-continent.

UEFA EURO 2012 kicks off on June 8 2012. Apart from the live stream of the tournament on iStream.com, viewers can also access the content on demand for the entire month both through www.neosports.tv and the www.istream.com.  Users can also access pre-and after match highlights, team and player stats, profiles, trivia and other related clips from the football event.

It’s interesting to note that Neo has chosen iStream over YouTube and other video streaming sites, which will certainly bring more traffic to the site, and in monetizing the content since the EURO 2012 is a premium property. This would also come as a good news for football fans in the country who have to make do with poor quality pirated streams, with the absence of official ones.

NEO Sports Broadcast Pvt. Ltd owns and operates two premium all-sports channels — NEO Prime and NEO Sport. The network offers global sports including Cricket, Football, Tennis, Golf, Badminton and Hockey. The channels have previously broadcast-ed Asia Cup, German Bundesliga, US PGA TOUR Golf, Davis Cup and Fed Cup and WTA Tour Women’s Tennis among others. The network has showcased events like Copa America 2011, Rugby World Cup 2011, World Series Hockey, etc. Apart from that the channel has also acquired broadcast rights for French Open and UEFA EURO 2012 for the Indian sub-continent.

Founded in 2007, iStream.com claims to have a library of over a 100,000 clips of premium News Bulletins, TV Shows & Movies in five Indian languages from over 50 channels. It also offers video content from partners such as Times Now, Zoom, Raj TV, Filmy, NDTV Lumiere, Vissa, Kairali TV and later Viacom18, to online destinations like YouTube, DailyMotion, MSN, Jagran/Yahoo, Indiatimes and Sify. Last year, iStream.com raised US$ 5 million from global private equity fund SAIF Partners.

Other Tie-ups for online streaming

Last year, Times Internet Limited (Indiatimes) tied up with PERFORM, a sports media company to offer online and mobile video content for English Premier League. It had also collaborated with National Basketball Association (NBA) to launch a dedicated section on its webiste. Indiatimes also has the global rights to the IPL for Internet, Mobile, Radio and Television (for certain territories), and streamed it live with a simulcast on YouTube. Recently, ESPN STAR Sports (ESS), and The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced a seven year (2013-2019) contract for exclusive multi-platform rights to broadcast its domestic and home international matches.

Disclosure: *Indiatimes is an advertiser with MediaNama