Sky Perfect Communications Inc. said Monday that it has won exclusive satellite broadcasting rights in Japan for the 2002 World Cup soccer championship.
The deal will allow the Tokyo-based operator of Sky PerfecTV to exclusively broadcast all 64 games to be jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan in May and June 2002 over the nation's communications satellite system, the company said.
The price of the deal has not been made public, but industry sources said it probably exceeds 10 billion yen.
Sky Perfect Communications is the first Japanese pay TV operator to acquire the rights to a major international sporting event.
The deal will not affect ongoing negotiations between the International Federation of Football Association, better known as FIFA, and the Japan Consortium, a body jointly formed by NHK and other major ground-based broadcasters, the company said.
Sky PerfecTV will set up about 10 channels to show the games live and repeat them at certain intervals so viewers can watch at different times, the company said.
Sky PerfecTV, which uses communication satellites to transmit programs to satellite dishes, had about 2.27 subscribers as of the end of August.