BT Sport tie-up wins backing of regulator
A NEW £633m sports joint venture run by BT Sport and Eurosport will launch within weeks after the competition watchdog waved through the deal.
BT and Discovery, the consumer media arm of Warner Brothers, will transfer their
European sports assets into a new company in the coming weeks. It comes after the Competition and Markets Authority said yesterday it had cleared the multimillionpound deal.
Both channels are maintaining their separate identities for now but are expected to merge in future.
The CMA launched an investigation in May into the deal over fears that a new channel, for the UK and Ireland, would have a stranglehold over UK broadcasting rights for football matches.
Andrew Georgiou, Discovery’s european managing director for sports, said: “Combining the capabilities, portfolios and scale of BT Sport and Eurosport UK will be a big win for fans in the UK & Ireland, offering a new destination that will feature all the sport they love in one place.”
Marc Allera, BT Sport boss, previously said the deal would give customers “more than you get today for the same price”, though he did not rule out future subscrip- tion increases.
Under the terms of the deal, BT will receive £93m immediately, with a further £540m to come if certain conditions are met.
BT Sport is one of Britain’s main football broadcasters, screening matches from the Champions League, Europa League and Uefa’s Confer- ence League.
BT Sport has the rights to show 550 games a year and held exclusive rights for the whole Champions League until recently ceding some games to Amazon.
That move was seemingly prompted by the Competition and Markets Authority starting its investigation into the Eurosport merger in May.
Amazon won rights to show one Champions League match a week on its Prime Video service starting from 2024, broadcasting about 20 matches per season.
The new channel’s branding and identity has not yet been released, though BT and Discovery said that its board would be split 50-50 between the two par- ent companies.