SPORTEL turns lucky seven; the sports TV biz is a growing game.

Every sports organization from the U.S.' National Basketball Association and National Football League to the International Table Tennis Federation will be in Monte Carlo October 14-17 for the seventh annual SPORTEL. Formally known as the International Sports and Television Convention, SPORTEL is expected to draw a mix of sports broadcasters, producers, program buyers, distributors, sports federations, sports agents and sponsors, all of them warmed up and ready to play their respective games. Sports celebrities at this year's event will include Norwegian speed skater Johann Olav Koss; champion French fencer Christian D'Oriola; and American Christopher Sinjin Smith, fresh from the first Olympic beach volleyball competition, which was held this summer in Atlanta.

SPORTEL, the only international program market devoted solely to sports television programming and events, is organized by the Principality of Monaco, which also stages the Monte Carlo TV Market and Festival and the World Music Awards. SPORTEL drew 301 companies and representatives of 54 different countries last year. Attendance figures have risen every year since the market's birth in 1990. This year's market is perfectly positioned to catch runoff from MIPCOM, which ends October 11 in nearby Cannes. SPORTEL organizers expect to welcome some 1,100 attendees and 350 companies 70 of which are exhibiting.

Prince Albert of Monaco will be on hand at the Sporting Center of the Place du Casino to officially open the market on October 14. From 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, the business of buying and selling sports program rights and TV rights to major sporting events will be in full swing.

In addition to the market itself, SPORTEL organizers have planned a variety of events to spice up the action. At the International Sports and Television Symposium, a creation of the International Association for Sport Without Violence, top athletes and sports and media experts will investigate the relationship between sports and television. This year's debate, titled "Sport: Is Television Within Its Rights?," will focus on the fact that TV has an increasingly strong (and possibly detrimental) influence on sports. In addition to the symposium on October 16, a variety of round tables will assemble experts in different fields for a healthy dose of discussion. On October 15 the World Football Cup '98 and TRVRS '98 (the organization that broadcasts the World Cup) will outline their plans for covering the big soccer games. Another special event in the works is the Gala Dinner hosted by SPORTEL and the General Association of International Sports Federations, which will be held in the Salle d'Or of the Loews Hotel on October 16.

SPORTEL will also do its part to recognize excellence in sports broadcasting. Golden Podium Awards, as well as a prize of 30,000 francs (more than $U.S.6,000), will be given to winners in three categories. Best Slow Motion Sports Sequence awards will be given to both the best edited shot and the best isolated camera shot. The Best Sports Program Opening Montage will honor the most creative, original and aesthetic opening clip. A Golden Podium Award will also be given for the Sports TV Image of the Year, which must be "a strong image, an image which will last, an image forever." Golden Podium winners will be announced on October 15 and the awards will be given out during a ceremony at the Loews Hotel on October 16.

The convention center (C.C.A.M.) in the Loews Hotel complex will house the SPORTEL Cultural Exhibition. The Olympic Museum in Lausanne contributed to this year's retrospective on the 100-year history of the modern Olympic Games. Another part of the exhibition, organized by "les Monnaies et Medailles de Paris," will salute the Olympics and the World Cup.

Perhaps feeling that no event is really an event without media coverage, SPORTEL organizers will provide a notable amount of free help to any TV or radio broadcasters who might care to cover SPORTEL on the air. The market's Radio and TV Center offers TV broadcasters two fully equipped sets; staffs of editors, cameramen and technicians; camera units and camera crews; and means of transmitting the result to Paris. Radio broadcasters can avail themselves of similar studio facilities, crew members and transmission options.

It should come as no surprise that market organizers with such shrewdness and foresight have plans for expansion of the SPORTEL franchise. SPORTEL is introducing a new market March 24-26, 1997, at the Doral Beach resort in Miami Beach, Florida; the new baby, christened SPORTELamerica, will focus on the growing TV sports industry in Latin America.

Speaking of SPORTEL...

From his base in Puerto Rico, Sport International's Hector Figueroa said that SPORTEL is sure to become one of the most important programming markets around because "sports have no boundaries; they apply to everyone, everywhere." He will be focusing on international sales at the market, with a special concentration on This Day In Sports, 366 30-second vignettes that feature one important sporting event a day. The program can be customized to a buyer's particular audio and video specifications.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ruckus Over TV Sports Rights

The TV rights to major sporting events are now big business. Germany's Kirch Group bought the rights to broadcast World Cup soccer from 2002 to 2006 for $2.27 billion. BSkyB bought the rights to the English Premiership soccer championships from 1997 to 2001 for an estimated $1 billion.

The European Commission (EC) has been eyeing these big deals with concern, scrutinizing the changing sports rights environment for signs of monopoly violations. Karel Van Miert, European Union (EU) antitrust commissioner, is heading a series of probes that will investigate the BSkyB deal and probably the Kirch deal as well. The probes may also target Sport 7, a new channel launched by Endemol and Philips in August. Sport 7 acquired the rights to all Dutch First Division soccer games from 1996 to 2004, as well as preferential renewal rights, for $650 million.

Of course, the EC itself recently made an agreement with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) that gave the latter exclusive rights to the 2000-08 Olympic Games for $1.44 billion. The EBU, an organization composed of 65 primarily state-owned broadcasters, won the Olympic rights in spite of the fact that BSkyB had submitted a higher bid.

RELATED ARTICLE: Baseball on International TV

It appears that U.S. baseball is getting the exposure and fanfare it deserves from around the world.

ESPN recently announced a deal that will give ESPN International the cable distribution rights to a supplemental package of 1996-97 Major League Baseball games. The package includes the rights to regular season games, divisional playoff games, the All Star Game, the League Championship Series and the World Series.

David Zucker, ESPN International's senior vice president, said: "Our networks in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East will receive a full complement of great games from a sport which is rapidly becoming one of the world's most popular."

Indeed, according to Major League Baseball International, baseball is now shown on 200 broadcast systems around the world, everywhere from the U.K. and Australia to Austria, South Africa and Sweden.