ASP Selling World Tour Webcast Rights

sell its global media rights, Swellnet reports.

In 2007 the ASP ceded full control of media rights, including the production of event webcasts to its licensees.

Swellnet has learned through an anonymous source that the ASP has been in negotiations with a global media company and will soon wrest the webcast rights back from licensees to be run by the new company.

However Swellnet has been told that ASP licensees are now at the stage where they believe it's in their best interests to hand over control of the webcasts.

For one, it would reduce expenditure for the licensees - each webcast production costs a minimum of $250,000. Secondly, there's an understanding that webcast reach has plateaued and can only expand further with the assistance of an established global network.

The project can only work if the new company acquires the rights to each WT tour stop, and it's believed that they will. What this will mean for viewers is a uniform webcast package between events: commentators, webcast technology, and presentation, would, for the first time, be consistent at every event.

The ASP has no official comment at this stage.