Bloomberg TV Africa launches weekly football show - 'Football Dynamics' - with BSports

Business Wire via ITWeb,

London, 22 Jan 2014

Football Dynamics is a fresh new studio-based show combining unique analytics from Bloomberg Sports with expert opinion to give viewers the inside track on the game's hot topics and focus on distinctive, data-driven football insights.

In the year when the World Cup will be staged for the first time in Brazil since 1950, with five African nations represented, Bloomberg Sports (BSports) is teaming up with Bloomberg TV Africa, part of the Optima Media Group.

Football Dynamics will combine all the assets of BSports in performance analytics and advanced match forecasting to create a show that merges the most important data and opinions in football with an emphasis on Africa, said Bill Squadron, President of Bloomberg Sports.

Fronting the show will be award-winning journalist and former CNN International business travel news correspondent Ayesha Durgahee, who will be joined every week by former Nigeria international Efan Ekoku and BSports contributors British football journalists Ben Lyttleton and Dave Farrar.

Regular features will focus on stand-out performances of the week across the top five European leagues, along with a World Cup segment Road to Rio, which will track the campaigns of the five African nations headed for Brazil using BSports projections. The show also aims to interact with viewers by inviting them to send in questions to Ask Efan.

Football fans will hear from not just top flight players but also the club executives making the deals and expanding their global reach. Viewers will gain a unique insight into the relationship between business and the game they love, said Rotimi Pedro, Chairman, Optima Media Group.

Bloomberg TV Africa is proud to be working with Bloomberg Sports on a joint venture that will reach 220 million households across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, including 38 African countries.

Viewers can catch up on-demand on mobile and tablet devices via StatsInsights.com and BloombergTVAfrica.com. Digital users will also be able to view live game and team statistics via the BSports Match Analysis tool.

Football Dynamics, running 50 weeks of the year, will be broadcast on Bloomberg TV in EMEA.

* Saturdays 2:30pm GMT/3:30pm CET repeating at 4:30pm GMT/5:30pm CET and 7:30pm GMT/ 8:30pm CET

* Sundays 2:30pm GMT/3:30pm CET and 4:30pm GMT/ 5:30pm CET.

Bloomberg TV Africa

Bloomberg TV Africa provides viewers with the sharpest global business and financial insight, as well as highly localised and market-specific content for Africa. Operated by Optima Media Group, Bloomberg TV Africa produces business programming available to African viewers across the continent via Bloomberg's English-language EMEA feed.

Optima Media Group

Optima Media Group's business network spans Africa, Europe and the US and is a platform for the flow of IP, funding and skills. The content provider focuses on combining an international perspective with Africa execution, operating to international standards with the aim of creating market-defining opportunities.

The group seeks to be at the forefront of Africa's unprecedented economic growth, which is rapidly integrating into the Global Media Village. Optima Media Group provides diverse content platforms for major international and local brands to enter the African market, with experience in television advertising, sponsorship, as well as offering infrastructure needs across the film and television industry.

Bloomberg Sports

Launched in 2010, Bloomberg Sports takes the technology developed by Bloomberg, the leading global provider in data and analytics, and applies it to the vast data analysis opportunities in sports. Bloomberg Sports' professional products for teams, broadcasters and athletes include a comprehensive baseball scouting, data and video system now used by almost all Major League Baseball clubs. The company also has introduced a consumer soccer product for European football, Match Analysis, a powerful predictive and analytic tool forecasting game results, as well as Stats Insights, a comprehensive blog that contains original content and analysis for the five major European football leagues, as well as the NFL, NHL, MLB, and NBA. Bloomberg Sports has been named by SportPro Magazine as one of Fifty Brands Shaping Global Sport in 2014, by Mashable as one of its Five Most Innovative Sports Brands for 2012, by The Sports Business Journal as a Finalist for Best In Sports Technology in 2012, and by Fast Company Magazine as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Sports in 2011. For more information, please go to BSports.com.

View this news release online at: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140122005452/en

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