MCOT Plc's chairman has insisted Modernine TV will not lose money from subleasing 2013-15 English Premier League (EPL) broadcast rights from Cable Thai Holding Plc (CTH) despite staff believing otherwise.
Sutham Saengprathum said the station will even profit from the deal even though the sublease price is as high as 480 million baht.
If the deal is reached, the state-owned MCOT will broadcast 17 football matches per season on its free TV channel.
''I'll take full responsibility if anything goes wrong,'' he said.
Mr Sutham predicts MCOT will earn 170 million baht in advertising revenue in the first year. If MCOT staff continue to oppose the deal, management will organise an internal hearing.
Malin Ponteerasatian, MCOT's senior vice-president for marketing, said the EPL deal will be the biggest that MCOT has ever clinched with the private sector.
''If we can get sponsors for all the time slots of the 17 games, the cost will be covered,'' she said.
MCOT plans to reserve two hours for each football match _ pre-game and half-game analysis sessions and a 90-minute match.
Last season, the EPL broadcast deal between TrueVisions and Channel 3 was on a revenue-sharing basis.
Wanchai Srisuchon, chief financial officer at CTH, the new EPL rights holder, said the company plans to generate revenue of 900 million baht from allowing free TV channels to broadcast the EPL matches over the next three years.
The company proposed 17 EPL games to Channel 3 on the sublease model but the free TV station turned it down. It made the same offer to Channel 9.
EPL requires the rights holders to broadcast 17 games on free TV.
A source from media agencies said the EPL sponsorship packages for the three seasons differ from previous years when TrueVisions was responsible for the pay-TV platform and Channel 3 for free TV.
Channel 9 will have two sponsorship packages _ 30 million and 50 million baht per season _ with marketing events at CentralWorld during the broadcasts.