The amount it took to boot MasterCard out of the next World Cup is easier to measure: US$200 million. That's how much Visa International Inc paid soccer's governing body to become the official financial-services company of international tournaments starting next year. MasterCard, which has sponsored the World Cup since 1990, has filed a lawsuit to retain the rights.

MasterCard and Visa are vying for the chance to reach soccer's global audience as cable television and the Internet undercut the value of traditional TV advertising. Sponsors will pay 900 million euros (US$1.14 billion) for the 2010 World Cup, up 40 percent from this year, according to the Zurich-based Federation Internationale de Football Association.

"The money that's going into sports is massive," says David Becker, a lawyer specializing in sports litigation at Collyer-Bristow LLP in London. "Parties are more willing now to protect their rights and to protect against other people infringing their rights because there is so much more at stake."

FIFA expects the July 9 World Cup final in Berlin to be watched by as many as 1.5 billion television viewers.

MasterCard says it should have been offered the right to extend its contracts and wants FIFA to rescind its agreement with Visa.

"There is no sponsorship platform anywhere in the world that rivals the FIFA World Cup in terms of the global reach and breadth of penetration it affords sponsors," MasterCard said in a lawsuit filed against FIFA on April 20 at US District Court in Manhattan. "The only sponsorship platform that even comes close to the FIFA World Cup is the Olympics."

Page:

1

2