Sports agency MP & Silva says it’s changing the way it does business.

After years focused on trading and arbitrage, the media rights company is determined to add extra value to key assets within its portfolio.

“We shouldn’t be a volume trader of 2,000 properties or 500 deals,” CEO Peter Hutton tells Media Business Asia. “We should be involved with the leading lights in a market.”

Hutton, who joined the company in May last year, is overseeing the new drive, acquiring underutilized rights that can be monetized through traditional and digital media.

In Asia, this includes local-language feeds for a new channel brand, BeIn Sports, anchored around MP & Silva’s roster of rights. In Asia, BeIn is jointly owned by MP & Silva and Qatari Sports Investments (an affiliate of Al Jazeera Media Networks), which owns and operates the channels in Europe and North America.

BeIn Sports channels are carried in Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines and – most recently – Thailand, with deals also in place for Taiwan.

However, going forward, it is not clear what MP & Silva’s strategic involvement in the channels business will be.

Syndication, licensing

There is widespread speculation that an impending deal by Al Jazeera to buy the channels business in Asia will complete sooner rather than later.

The deal may make things a lot simpler for MP & Silva as it refocuses on its syndication and licensing business and steer clear of potential local operator conflicts.

Gestational losses associated with new sports channels can also run far longer than planned.

Meanwhile, the company is pursuing closer collaboration with local sports leagues, recently signing a six-year deal with Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League for example, covering domestic and global media rights as well as production for all games.

“We are at a stage where we are looking increasingly at doing those long-term deals with federations, helping to grow the product on a ten-year or even longer basis,” Hutton says.

A recent arrival

MP & Silva’s new strategy is adding to competition in Asia, where Fox Sports is a strong regional player and local pay-TV operators continue to invest in their own sports channels built around first-tier rights, some of which are sold by MP & Silva.

In late 2012, MP & Silva paid an estimated US$90 million for three years of Premier League football in Indonesia, three times the value analysts at Media Partners Asia estimate the last cycle cost.

After testing market demand, these rights became the cornerstone property for BeIn’s Asian debut in Indonesia.

“The philosophy we came up with is that if we launch a channel, we can increase the value of all our content and genuinely improve the market,” Hutton explains.

Three BeIn Sports branded channels have since launched on multiple pay-TV platforms in Indonesia (Orange, Nexmedia, First Media, Big TV). More platforms are under negotiation.

However, the brand is notably absent on Indonesia’s largest pay-TV platform run by MNC, which accounts for more than 70% pay-TV market share.

Furthermore, although the Premier League currency has proved valuable for MP & Silva in Indonesia, the big bets made by Orange, and NexMedia in particular have not come off.

Narrow focus

As its strategies play out, BeIn Sports will also have different spending and distribution priorities to Fox Sports, Asia’s biggest regional sports channel, as Al Jazeera has a narrower focus compared with Fox’s large channel portfolio in Asia, Hutton says.

BeIn Sports will not compete in every market, he adds, while in others MP & Silva will pursue very limited rights, provided the margins are right. The agency recently acquired digital rights from the Philippines Basketball Association, for example.

MP & Silva has also been increasing efforts to monetize its digital portfolio, since partnering with business-to-business video network Rightster in 2012.