WBC Will Be Watched Live

By Kang Seung-woo
Staff Reporter

A deal for the second World Baseball Classic (WBC) live coverage has finally been concluded one day ahead of a Korean team's qualifier against Taiwan in the Asian preliminary round.

IB Sports, an exclusive broadcasting rights provider, and the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) agreed to a contract on televising the baseball event live on television Thursday night.

KBS is a representative of the three networks ― Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), Munwha Broadcasting Company (MBC) and KBS.

``KBS and IB Sports have reach an agreement on the live broadcasting,'' IB Sports said.

Although both sides are mum on the terms, IB Sports seems to have accepted KBS's offer, worth $1.3 million, assuming that it said it sustained a loss.

With the purchase of the broadcasting rights, KBS will air the Korea-Taiwan game, while SBS will televise Korea's second match Saturday.

MBC will be in charge of the third.

The two sides have been in talks since early February, but a large gap on the fee put the negotiations on hold.

IB Sports initially asked for $3 million and then cut this to $2.5 million Wednesday, but KBS stuck to its original offer of $1.3 million, citing this tough economic situation.

The three television stations paid $2 million for the rights for the live coverage of the first WBC in 2006.

Even up to Thursday morning, the two sides had not found a solution to the lingering issue, so Korean baseball aficionados seemingly had to watch the baseball world cup through a pay-per-view webcast or satellite digital media broadcasting, which also cost viewers.

``Despite a financial loss, we could not ignore fans' desire to watch the tournament live,'' said Kim Jung-hwan, the vice president of IB Sports.

``In order to curb the loss, we have sold the live coverage rights to Xports. I anticipate that many people will be able to watch the WBC.''

Xsports, a local cable network and IB Sports' subsidiary company, was slated to broadcast Korea's games three hours after the start.

ksw@koreatimes.co.kr

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