IMG, one of the world's largest sports and entertainment marketing groups, is planning to announce a joint venture with Globo, Brazil's largest television network, in the next two weeks.

The deal, in which IMG will stage five made-for-TV events starting this year, follows a sports marketing agreement this week with Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man, and an earlier 20-year deal with CCTV, the Chinese TV station.

“I'm very interested in all these places,” said Ted Forstmann, the US leveraged buy-out billionaire who controls IMG. “These are the three countries with the biggest GDP growth.”

The push into Brazil and China follows IMG's success in India. The group helped create the Indian Premier League, the multibillion-dollar cricket tournament based on the Twenty20 format, which started its third season last weekend.

Of the three emerging markets, Mr Forstmann sees India as the most fertile ground for sports marketing businesses.

The 20-year deal with CCTV to develop and market new sporting events was exciting, he said, but China was more developed in terms of the industry, having already staged its own Olympics and regularly winning large numbers of gold medals at all competitions.

India only won its first individual gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.