By: Andre Yeo

THE battle for eyeballs has now moved from the living rooms and bedrooms into coffee shops and F&B outlets.

A SingTel spokesman said that mio TV has been made available to these places since last December.

The telco will broadcast the upcoming Champions League, the Europa League and Serie A matches.

Miss Claire Soon, 27, events manager at nightspot, Arena, said it only subscribes to StarHub to show the big games.

She added: 'I doubt the fact that Champions League matches will be shown on mio TV will affect us at all.'

The management of pub, Club 48, also does not expect business to be affected if it does not have mio TV as the Champions League is not as popular with its clientele as English Premier League (EPL) matches are.

In 2007, StarHub increased the monthly subscription fee for its Sports Group from $15 to $26.75.

There was the usual furore with some subscribers cancelling their subscriptions, according to online forums.

Yesterday, soccer fans on online forums were, not surprisingly, voicing their displeasure at the added cost of watching Champions League on SingTel's Football Frenzy from August at $15.90 a month.

On HardwareZone, panda san said he would not watch the Champions League while purplewave said he would rather sleep.

Others said they voted with their wallets the day StarHub increased its monthly Sports Group subscription.

Inix said: 'I've given up on Sports Channel the day they increased the price from $15 onwards and I won't be paying for mio as well.'

mio TV has 100,000 subscribers.

Soccer fans The New Paper spoke to also felt it was becoming too expensive and complicated to watch soccer these days, now that they might need two set-top boxes.

Student Marvin Miranda, 19, said he would not subscribe to mio TV and would follow the action online through soccer websites that provide minute-by-minute updates.

He said: 'The Champions League lasts only for a short time. Why subscribe to a service I really don't need for a whole year just for that?'

Temasek Polytechnic's business school lecturer, Mr Gary Lin, 40, said how much fans are willing to pay for a service would depend on their love for their teams.

Team loyalty

Because fans, he said, are attached to teams, not leagues. So, some may also subscribe to mio TV because their teams play in both the EPL and the Champions League.

He said: 'TV is expensive because there is a bidding war where StarHub and SingTel fight for the broadcasting rights. So, they have to charge a price to recover their costs.

'The ones that suffer at the end of the day are the fans.

'Real Madrid have paid ridiculous prices for players - £80 million ($190m) for Cristiano Ronaldo and £56 million for Kaka.'

Mr Lin feels that indirectly, the subscription fees are paying the players' wages because clubs think broadcasting fees will keep coming in.

He added: 'To the fans it's soccer. But to the clubs, it's more than that, it's money.'

The SingTel spokesman said it is giving value for money with Football Frenzy.

She said: 'For $15.90, not only can you watch all the Champions League games without any hidden costs or having to pay for a basic tier subscription, you get to watch them on TV, your mobile phone and online at the exciting new SingTel Stadium.'

The Stadium is a customisable web portal where fans can gather to watch online matches and interact with other fans.

StarHub's head of content, Ms Kathleen Syron, said as at 31 Mar, it has 527,000 households subscribing to StarHub TV.

It would not reveal the size of its Sports Group base due to commercial and competitive reasons, she said.

As to how StarHub viewed Football Frenzy's presence and the impact it would have on StarHub's Sports Group subscribers, she said StarHub's would continue to focus on providing value to customers, regardless of the competition.

When asked why StarHub felt it unnecessary to review its subscription rates, now that subscribers would have three fewer soccer competitions to watch, the company chose to focus on its offerings instead.

Like how the Sports Group had 13 channels also covering other sports like basketball, tennis and golf.

Additional reporting by Naveen Kanagalingam and Kay Tan, newsroom interns

This article was first published in The New Paper.