CCTV, Puerto Rico’s SportsNow! in Olympic Deal

BEIJING, October 22: CCTV Sports Promotion, a division of
the Chinese state broadcaster, and Puerto Rico’s SportsNow! International have
struck an agreement to jointly produce and distribute worldwide the series Who's
Who (The Rivals), featuring a selection of the world’s top athletes
as they prepare for next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

This is the first time that CCTV Sports has partnered with
an international sports company to develop and produce a sports series for
worldwide distribution in all media.

Who's Who (The
Rivals) will consist of 50 episodes of 24
minutes each, featuring exclusive interviews with the top 50 Chinese Olympic
Gold-medal contenders and the top 50 international athletes from the rest of
the world. The series will focus on 50 disciplines with video from the most
recent competitions of the top six to eight athletes. It will concentrate on
the top two to three athletes in each discipline, covering their preparations
for the Olympics, their on-camera comments about their competitors, their
forecasts as to what they expect in their respective events, as well as
presenting biographical material and interviews with their trainers, family and
friends. In all, more than 350 of the world’s top elite athletes will be
featured in exclusive interviews and recent competitions.

Hector Figueroa, the director of SportsNow! International,
commented: “The Chinese are the world’s future superstars and yet they are
largely unknown outside China and have not been easily accessible to the world
media. The key point of interest for the international broadcaster or sponsor
will be access to CCTV’s exclusive interviews of these top Chinese athletes. No
other pre-Olympic series has ever offered so complete a picture of elite
athletes in preparation for an Olympic Games.”

—By Irene Lew