An eleventh-hour deal to secure TV highlights of the England v Ukraine World Cup qualifier, which will be broadcast online and in some cinemas only, appears to be fading after prime contenders ITV and BBC both had solid deals rejected.
The match was due to be broadcast on Setanta before the digital broadcaster went bust. Deals to move the match onto another broadcaster floundered and the agency that owns the rights decided to show the game live on the internet.
It is understood that Kentaro, the Switzerland-based agency responsible for the rights, has decided that the focus should be "all about the internet".
ITV has had what it believes is a fair bid rejected, as has the BBC which, it is understood, made a bid close to the most it has ever offered for highlights of an England international match.
However the possibility remains that Kentaro may still strike a deal today, but as close to the match as possible in order to maximise subscriptions to the internet package.
One source said that the company had been "encouraged" by the number of subscriptions so far and that the rate was building significantly as kick-off draws closer.
Perform, the company responsible for streaming tomorrow night's match, has imposed a ceiling of one million subscriptions in order to guarantee a quality streaming service. Questions have been raised in some quarters about whether a quality service can be delivered to such numbers of viewers simultaneously.
Nick Bond, the infrastructure specialist at Zeus Technology, which has managed online traffic for ITV and Comic Relief, argues that if the one million target is hit, up to 50% of subscribers may encounter viewing problems at the start of the match.
"There is a very serious risk of an outage as the Ukraine v England game streams online," he said. "The existing infrastructure in the UK has never been tested in this way. In the period prior to the start of the game, there is going to be a huge peak of users trying to setup a connection, more complex and resource hungry than, for example, an [BBC] iPlayer feed.
"It is possible that 50% of the predicted 1 million subscribers could fail to get any service at the beginning of the match".
He added that the success or failure of tomorrow's broadcast "will have a huge effect on whether customers use the internet to watch live games again, and will [impact] the online brand reputation of those organisations involved".
However the company, which provides streaming services to 80 Premier League and Football League clubs, says it is "confident" that it will deliver an "optimal viewing experience".
It says that as punters have signed up for a subscription, a basic test has been carried out on the users' system, and if the system can handle YouTube videos then the live feed of the England qualifier should be fine.
The match is being made available through www.ukrainevengland.com as well as a host of partner websites including the Sun, Times, News of the World, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Star, Independent, Virgin Media and Orange.
Up until Wednesday an "early bird" subscription was priced at £4.99, however since yesterday the price has been incrementally ratcheting up, and will peak at £11.99 on match day tomorrow.
Last night Kentaro reached an agreement to broadcast the match on closed TV to the British Forces overseas, to more than 18 countries including Afghanistan and Iraq. The deal was struck with BFBS TV and match commentary will also be carried on BFBS Radio.
"We were very conscious that British Forces on operations would not to able to access the match via the internet, but very much wanted them to be able to watch England's final World Cup qualifier," said Philipp Grothe, the chief executive of Kentaro.
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