Combat Sports

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Starhub regarding the Sports & Football Channel. Now with Singtel MioTV having the rights to the EPL next season, fans are expected to leave Starhub or at least get rid of their Sports Channel, so to prevent this, Starhub is offering 2 new sports channels for free and promise to revise their Sports Group pricing from July 2010.

All good and well but if Starhub want to keep their sport viewers, I have a suggestion for them. Currently as it stands, I probably will not be renewing my Sports Channel because Starhub is not offering anything different.

I think the best, if not the only, way for Starhub to keep sport fans is to offer something different. And by different, I mean something other than say Spanish football, German football, Italian football etc. Singaporeans are fed on English football so offering football from other European countries just will not work, especially when it will be up against the EPL from MioTV.

What I think Starhub should do is to offer sports that few Singaporeans had seen before. Take for example the recent Lion City Kickboxing program. Yes, it was cancelled at the last minute, but the idea was good.

Starhub was offering something a sport that is both new and different from anything currently showed on their Sports Channel. Instead of entering a bidding war with Singtel in football, tennis etc, I think Starhub should consider niche sports or more specifically combat sports.

Combat sports like kickboxing (K-1, Muay Thai) and MMA (UFC, DREAM) are not shown in Singapore and Singtel has not shown any interest in showing them. So instead of entering a bidding war for programs, Starhub should concentrate on sports which are not shown in Singapore.