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Communicate.com, Inc. |
Live Current Media Inc. and DLF Indian Premier League to Launch
IPLT20.com as Official IPL Online Destination
Business Wire 8:11 am April 17, 2008
MUMBAI, India & VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Communicate.com Inc. dba Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB: CMNN), a
media company built around content and commerce destinations,
announced that it will launch IPLT20.com tomorrow as the official site
for the DLF Indian Premier League. As outlined in the Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU), Live Current will become the exclusive online
provider of content from the Board of Control for Cricket in India
(BCCI) and the DLF Indian Premier League. This signifies the first
cricket-related content and distribution relationship by Live Current
as the Company plans to build and launch its Cricket.com asset as the
future cricket DestinationHub(TM) for cricket fans globally.
With IPLT20.com becoming the official online destination for the DLF
Indian Premier League, fans from around the world will now have access
to the 44 day long season starting tomorrow, April 18. The site will
offer access to official league content including audio-visual,
photographs, live scoreboards and summaries, match results, Fantasy
Cricket, player interviews, profiles, schedules, statistics, ticketing
and fan interaction through polls, contests and newsletters.
The launch of IPLT20.com enables businesses from around the world to
access millions of cricket fans through advertising and branding of
the official site. In the same vein as major sports media events such
as the World Cup, the DLF Indian Premier League is predicted to be a
major revenue generator, on track towards its target of $2 billion in
its inaugural season through franchise and rights sales, advertising,
sponsorships and ticket sales. Many global organizations have already
come on board as various sponsors including Sony and the World Sports
Group which have secured the global broadcast rights for over $1
billion and blue chip sponsors including PepsiCo, Hero Honda,
Vodafone, CitiBank and Kingfisher have committed to the league.
"Based on our experience, we predict that the Indian Premier League
will be one of the biggest sports and entertainment media events in
the world," says Andrew Wildblood, SVP of IMG, the official media and
event partner for the IPL. "Having managed significant sports media of
this size, we recognize the immense opportunity for IPLT20.com to
enable passionate fans to connect with the content they want from
wherever they are around the world, and for brands in India and around
the world to gain visibility to this huge audience."
The ten-year agreement outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding
with Live Current includes extensive co-marketing and exclusive online
content rights agreements for Live Current to build, launch and
operate the official online destinations for the DLF Indian Premier
League: www.IPLT20.com and the BCCI: www.BCCI.tv. The BCCI will be
guaranteed on a combined basis a minimum of US $3 million annually and
the IPL US $ 2 million annually through revenue sharing agreements
including percentages of advertising, sponsorship and merchandising
sales.
Lalit Modi, Chairman & Commissioner, DLF Indian Premier League, said,
"I expect the site to extend the stadium experience of a cricket match
to the worldwide audience of cricket fans at large. The www.IPLT20.com
website is highly interactive and includes everything a cricket fan
would need to get their daily, hourly and minute-by-minute fix."
Speaking specifically of the relationship with Live Current Modi
added, "We chose to work with Live Current because of its vision of
developing a consumer hub for that provides IPL fans globally with
free and direct access to the play-by-play action and ability to
connect with those aspects that they love about the game - from the
international stars to the on-field action."
In addition to today's launch of www.IPLT20.com, Live Current is also
developing the official web site for the BCCI: www.BCCI.tv. The BCCI
is the largest cricket body in the world and represents all Indian
cricket including the Indian national team. The BCCI site will be a
premier sports web site, akin to Fifa.com, and will be the destination
for India's 1 billion cricket fans to get in-depth information about
players and teams.
"Our team extends North America, the UK and India and is set on
creating the most interactive environment for cricket fans worldwide
to engage in the world of Indian cricket from wherever they live,"
says Geoffrey Hampson, Live Current Media Inc. CEO and Chairman.
"These partnerships represent enormous value for Live Current in the
form of exclusive rights to IPL and BCCI content. The relationship is
very strategic for us as we build a world class sports media business
to serve the immense fan base for cricket."
Live Current's DestinationHubs integrates all aspects by which users
interact with the Internet and the sport of cricket to discover more
and get closer to the information they are passionate about in their
daily lives. Today's launch of IPLT20.com is the first of many sites
to be developed by the new Live Current team, including newly acquired
individuals formerly with Auctomatic. The Auctomatic team and
developer, Ankur Nagpal bring extensive experience with social media
and application development such as Fantasy Cricket on Facebook on the
IPLT20.com site which will be fully leveraged across Cricket.com and
other future Live Current destinations.
About Live Current Media Inc.
Communicate.com Inc. is doing business as "Live Current Media Inc."
and will seek formal shareholder approval to change its legal name to
Live Current Media Inc. later in 2008.
Live Current builds, owns and operates some of the most powerful and
engaging content and commerce destinations on the Internet. Through
subject-specific DestinationHubs(TM), Live Current properties connect
people to each other and to the information, brands, and products they
are passionate about. Live Current has headquarters in Vancouver,
Canada with a location in Seattle, WA and is publicly traded on the
NASD OTCBB (CMNN). For more information, visit www.livecurrent.com.
About the DLF Indian Premier League
The DLF Indian Premier League is set to kick off on April 18th 2008,
with some high voltage action expected between ShahRukh Khan's Kolkata
Knight Riders and Dr. Vijay Mallya's Bangalore Royal Challengers at
the Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bangalore. The DLF Indian Premier League
will feature eight Franchises and will run for 44 days. Each Franchise
will play others on a home and away basis with 7 matches at home. The
top 4 Franchises in the league will contest the semi finals and the
victorious semi finalists will meet in the Grand Final all over one
weekend, which will be played out in Mumbai.
The inaugural season of the DLF Indian Premier League will showcase a
grand total of 59 matches providing broadcasters and in-stadia
spectators with 177 hours of live "family entertainment," which will
also be viewed by a significant international audience. All matches
will be during late afternoon and evening to coincide with prime time
for television and providing a convenient time for the stadium
audience. The LIVE In-stadia entertainment, combined with the high-
octane on-field action has further hooked viewers onto this new
adrenalin packed LIVE family entertainment format attracting a much
younger fan base, which also includes women and children.
Safe Harbor: Certain statements contained in this press release may
constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although
Communicate.com Inc. d.b.a. Live Current Media Inc. believes the
expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on
reasonable assumptions; it can give no assurance that its expectations
will be attained. Factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from expectations include financial performance, regulatory
changes, changes in economic conditions and other risks detailed from
time to time in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this
press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this
press release. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update
any for ward-looking statements, and readers are cautioned not to
place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.
Source: Live Current Media Inc.