Better late than never: Vietnam secures Asiad 2018 broadcasting rights

By Huong Giang   August 21, 2018 | 02:10 am PT
Better late than never: Vietnam secures Asiad 2018 broadcasting rights
Eleven days after the first football match of Asiad 2018 kicked off, fans in Vietnam can finally watch the remaining games on TV. Photo by VnExpress/Duc Dong
Voice of Vietnam (VOV) secures broadcasting rights to Asiad 2018, including football matches, three days after it opened.

Vietnamese fans have a new reason to rejoice.

As their football, volleyball and rattan ball teams scored upset victories of more fancied opponents, they no longer have to watch the Asian Games via low quality online streaming or wait for post-match highlights.

National radio broadcaster Voice of Vietnam has announced that it has obtained the broadcasting rights for Asiad 2018 in Vietnam for less than $2 million.

This is welcome news for fans, even if it has come three days after the event’s grand opening ceremony and 10 days after the first men’s football match played by Vietnam in the tournament.

Starting on Wednesday, people in Vietnam can watch Asiad 2018 on TVs, smart phones and online apps. In particular, they can watch all the games on channel VTC3 and VOVTV as well as websites like VOV.VN, VTCnews and the VTCnow mobile app.

National broadcaster VTV, who usually buys the broadcasting rights for big sporting events and tournaments, had refused to purchase the broadcasting package from KJSM, a South Korean enterprise which wanted $10 million.

This was 10 times higher than the broadcasting rights for Asiad 2014. Meanwhile, VTV only wanted broadcasting rights for the men’s football tournament.

Vietnamese fans have already missed watching all group stage matches of the Vietnam national football team on “proper” channels. They tried to pick up live streaming of matches, suffering low quality and slow transmission.

Two leading corporations, Vingroup and Viettel, supported VOV in purchasing broadcasting rights for Asiad 2018. These are also the two corporations that helped VTV in getting the football World Cup 2018 broadcasting rights last June.

Football fans in Vietnam can now sit in front of their TV sets and watch their team play Bahrain in a round of 16 match at 7:30 p.m. this Thursday, August 23.

 
 
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