One World Sports (OWS) has extended its contract for the exclusive North American rights to all Asian Football Confederation (AFC) events until 2016, reports SportsPro. Under the terms of its agreement with World Sport Group (WSG), the marketing partner of Asian soccer's governing body, the 24-hour English-language broadcaster of Asian sports will continue to manage the multi-platform rights in the US and Canada for the Asian Cup, the AFC's premier pan-continental event held every four years, the next edition of which is scheduled to take place in Australia in 2015.
One Media Corp-owned OWS will also remain the sole North American rights holder of the AFC Champions League, Asia's elite club competition, and the AFC's qualifying matches for the 2014 Fifa World Cup and the Rio 2016 Olympic games.
"OWS have committed to show more matches from the AFC events than have ever been shown in the USA and Canada before, from a broad range of our competitions, including both the main national team competitions and the AFC Champions League. We greatly appreciate their support."
Rick Jemison, senior vice president of programming at One World Sports, added: "We are excited about the extension of our exclusive rights to the AFC events through 2016.
"The extension guarantees that we will bring the 2015 Asian Cup, Asia's top soccer match, as well as ongoing live coverage of AFC events to our North American audience. It's part of our long-term commitment to deliver Asia's best soccer events live on TV, broadband and mobile to US sports fans." "We are very pleased to have One World Sports join us as our North American broadcast partner," said James Clarke, senior vice president of content at World Sport Group.
