Online cinema Okko signed an agreement with the basketball club “Zenith”
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Okko and the Zenit basketball club signed a cooperation agreement for the 2023/24 season: the video service received the right to exclusively broadcast the pre-season Kondrashin and Belov Cup, as well as video content about the life of Zenit. Such contracts are a common practice to fill the air during periods of calm in the tournament.
The Okko online cinema has received exclusive rights to broadcast the pre-season Kondrashin and Belov Cup and video content about the life of basketball Zenit, a representative of the video service told Kommersant. The corresponding agreement was signed at SPIEF between Alexander Tserkovny, General Director of BC Zenit, and Oleg Manzha, head of Okko’s sports direction.
According to the contract, the online cinema will start broadcasting the cup in the 2023/24 season. The report clarifies that cooperation also implies mutual privileges for fans of the Zenit basketball club and Okko users in the framework of the ticket program, subscriptions and other areas.
The Kondrashin and Belov Cup is a basketball tournament named after Soviet and Leningrad basketball players, coach Vladimir Kondrashin and center Alexander Belov. It was held from the 1990s until 2018, then it was not held for two years due to funding problems. After the organization was taken over by Zenit with the support of the Committee for Physical Culture and Sports of the Government of St. Petersburg, it was decided to hold the competition again. Petersburgers in the final in 2021 won against CSKA with a score of 100:73, in 2022 the club will became Cup winner, beating CSKA with a score of 79:58.
Okko has previously purchased the rights to display the Davis Cup, the American MMA promotion PFL, the European Figure Skating Championship, the Biathlon World Championship and the World Cup. In May of this year, the online cinema received exclusive rights to broadcast the largest European basketball tournament – the Euroleague, reported RBC. It was clarified that Okko will start broadcasting the Euroleague Final Four of the 2022/23 season and will show the matches of the tournament until the 2025/26 season inclusive.
“Now football matches, like basketball matches, have gone into the off-season, you need to fill in the pauses, so online cinemas and TV channels conclude similar contracts,” says Mikhail Gershkovich, former CEO of Liga TV.
According to him, Match TV introduced a similar practice by founding the Match Premier Cup. So online cinemas are pursuing a strategy to retain the audience during the period until major tournaments are held, Mr. Gershkovich believes.
The parties did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement. “I admit that this could be a barter cooperation: partnership will give Zenit an increased media presence, Okko will get a basketball audience,” says Boris Gubkin, an expert at Bookmaker Rating. It can be assumed that the Okko rights were transferred for free in order to promote the tournament, but the cost of these rights is equal to the cost of production, agrees Pavel Krasnov, head of sponsorship at BetBoom.
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