2018-2024 Olympics: BBC Loses Rights as IOC Releases TV, Multi-Platform Details
June 29, 2015
The television rights for the Olympic Games have been awarded to Eurosport from 2018 up until 2024 after parent company Discovery Communications struck a lucrative £920 million deal with the International Olympic Committee, per BBC.co.uk.
It means that the BBC, while they will still be able to sub-license some of the rights, will no longer be the hub of Olympic coverage for British viewers from 2022 onward; the BBC have already signed a deal securing rights for Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2020.
Owen Gibson of the Guardian looked to summarise what this might mean from the 2022 Games onward:
A statement on Olympic.org outlined the details of this complex new agreement:
Today’s announcement kicks off a long-term partnership between the biggest global sports event, the Olympic Games, and leading global media company, Discovery Communications.
With an average of 10 channels in every market and the #1 European online and OTT sports offerings, Discovery and Eurosport will deliver more coverage across more screens than ever before to over 700 million people across Europe.
Discovery and Eurosport’s coverage will be augmented by strong free-to-air access and innovative partnerships with broadcasters and distributors to bring the Games to life like never before.
News of the deal represents another major blow for the BBC, who have come under attack from rival broadcasters for various sporting spectacles.
As noted by Gibson, they’ve already lost the rights to show The Open Championship to Sky Sports in 2017, and they’re also anticipating a fight to cling onto their coverage of the Six Nations.
Speaking with the Guardian in the aforementioned piece, David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery, outlined his plans for the coverage, admitting he will take an open approach to negotiating with the BBC:
Part of our approach will be to strive to work with some of the best Olympic broadcast players. The BBC will have the chance to sub-licence some of the rights. We’ll open up those discussions in every market.
We want to give them the opportunity to sub-licence. In some markets we will run free to air, pay TV and all devices and in others we’ll partner with others.
Eurosport is currently only available to customers who possess the requisite television packages, but as part of Olympics legislature, the tournaments must be broadcast on a free-to-air basis. But that ruling could be subject to change by the time the 2022 Games come round.
As noted by Michael Payne of IOC, it’s not the first time that Eurosport are involved in the event:
Nonetheless, anyone tuning into the London Olympics will testify to the quality of the product put together by the BBC. The analysis of experts, multi-platform availability and the ease with which the minutiae of every discipline could be accessed was a hallmark of those games.
We’re still likely to see the highlights of the games on terrestrial television; not securing any kind of sub-license agreement would be a major faux pas on behalf of the BBC, after all. But this is a venture Discovery and Eurosport are clearly serious about, and you can be rest assured they’ll be going out of their way to enrich the Olympic experience for European viewers.