Olympics TV deal could spur shake up of major sports broadcasting, expert says

Last week the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Discovery, the parent company of Eurosport, had won the rights in a Europe-wide deal worth €1.3 billion. Discovery won the rights to show the Olympics in 48 countries between 2018 and 2024 and in the UK and France between 2022 and 2024 under the deal.

The rights span "across all platforms, including free-to-air television, subscription/pay-TV television, internet and mobile phone", according to a joint statement issued by the organisations.

Sports broadcasting rights expert Julian Moore of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said that the deal spur a number of changes to the acquisition of rights and coverage of major sporting events in future.

"When Discovery acquired Eurosport last year it made clear its ambitions to secure rights for 'big ticket' events," Moore said. "This deal demonstrates their intentions and has the potential to create greater dynamism and competition in both free and pay TV markets across the continent."

"The Olympics is a listed event in many European countries, including the UK. This means that only certain free TV broadcasters are allowed to show exclusive coverage of the Games. In the UK, those broadcasters are the BBC, which has been increasing its coverage of the Olympics in recent times, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. If the current listed events legislation does not change before 2022, Discovery would be required to sub-licence the rights to show the Games in 2022 and 2024 to one of those free TV providers," he said.

Discovery has already said at least 200 hours of each of the summer Games and 100 hours of each of the winter Games between 2018 and 2024 will be broadcast on free-to-air television. It has also said that it will "sub-license a portion of the rights in many markets across Europe".

Moore said: "Discovery is now the gatekeeper of European rights. What they do with those rights will be determined primarily by two factors: firstly, their commercial model and what will maximise returns on their significant financial outlay on the rights, and secondly, listed events legislation."

"If in the UK in 2022 listed events legislation still exists and the Olympics is still on that list then the Olympics will still have to be shown on free-to-air TV. However, potentially the number of qualifying broadcasters on the list may change, and I suspect Eurosport will work hard between now and 2022 to lobby the UK broadcasting authorities and seek to qualify as a free TV broadcaster. They will not want the commercial model to be dictated to by legislation," he said.

Moore said that if Eurosport was included on the list of broadcasters able to showcase listed sporting events exclusively then they could decide to "maintain that exclusivity themselves" or sub-licence the entire rights to the BBC or other broadcasters on the list. Alternatively they could adopt a hybrid model where they sub-licence some of the rights to a rival broadcaster and feature remaining coverage on their own free-to-air channel, Moore said. They could even seek permission to show a proportion of the Olympics in the UK on their pay-TV channels, he said, especially at times when various different sports are taking place simultaneously.

An increase in the number of broadcasters who can win exclusive rights to events specified under the listed events legislation could drive competition in the market for rights to the FIFA World Cup and other listed events too, Moore said, which could be good news for consumers.

"Eurosport is a very well respected channel and now under new management," Moore said. "The quality of their coverage of sport at the moment is high and Discovery has already indicated its intention to invest further in production, talent and lead-up programming and clearly have the financial muscle to do so. They have also said to the IOC that they will support them in the production of a dedicated new Olympics TV channel."

Moore said that the changing media and technology landscape is changing the way people consume sport and other premium content and that this might mean that "the whole concept of listed events becomes an anachronism" and "creative ways to split rights and get the footage out there" are found.