Broadcast details of Euro matches to be known on Friday: major sponsor

Komol Jungrungreangkit, the chairman of Summit Footwear and one of five firms pooling money to buy the broadcast rights, also disputed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s claims that government-run NBT and 9MCOT would be the main channels for broadcasting the matches of the UEFA Euro 2024 competition.

Earlier in the day, Srettha chaired a ceremony at Government House to announce that the country had five major sponsors for broadcasting the football matches.

The five sponsors are Summit Footwear Co Ltd, PTT Plc, Thai Beverage Plc, Airports of Thailand Plc, and Bangkok Airways.

After the ceremony, Srettha boasted to reporters that Thailand would broadcast every match of Euro 2024 and the government did not have to pay a single baht for the broadcast rights.

He said all matches would be broadcast on Channel 9 of MCOT and Channel 11 or NBT.

The prime minister added that his favourite team was England.
Later, Komol said he doubted whether NBT and 9MCOT were good enough to broadcast in high definition.

Komol said he was certain now that PPTV of Bangkok Airways would be among the stations to broadcast the matches as it has high definition.

“We are also talking to two or three more channels. It’s quite hectic,’ Komol said.

“NBT is not an HD channel and 9MCOT’s signal is not clear enough. NBT’s signal cannot compete with private channels so they may not get the right to broadcast the matches.”

Another channel that is expected to broadcast the matches is Amarin TV HD because it is owned by a family member that owns Thai Beverage.

Komol said he could not disclose the copyright amount paid to UEFA, as UEFA had prohibited the disclosure. He said the price was a little bit higher than the 300 million baht paid for the broadcast rights of Euro 2020.

“The deal was closed in the last minutes,” Komol revealed.

Komol said his company had paid for the broadcast rights to help Thais get the opportunity to view good football matches.

Summit Footwear is the maker of Aerosoft footwear brand. Komol said he was hoping that Thais would become more familiar with his quality footwear products.

The UEFA Euro 2024 is being hosted by Germany from June 14 to July 14. Twenty-four teams have qualified, including host nation Germany.  The qualifying matches were played between March 2023 and March 2024. The first game kicks off on June 14 with Germany facing Scotland.

Here are some of the opening fixtures:

Germany vs Scotland (Friday, June 14, 7pm UTC)
Hungary vs Switzerland (Saturday, June 15, 1pm UTC)
Spain vs Croatia (Saturday, June 15, 4pm UTC)
Italy vs Albania (Saturday, June 15, 7pm UTC)