Discovery to sublease Olympic FTA rights to RAI
December 20, 2021
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Discovery has reached an agreement with Italian public broadcaster RAI to sublease the TV rights it holds for the Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
In June 2015, the US media company paid €1.3 billion for the European TV rights to the Olympics through 2024.
According to Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore, the deal will see RAI broadcasting 200 hours of the summer games and 100 hours of the winter games.
For its part, Discovery will make the entire Games available via its Discovery Plus streaming service, while a selection of the most popular events will also be aired via the Eurosport channel, also owned by the US company.
The negotiations between Discovery and RAI started in March and were close to hitting a dead end due to the differences between the sum requested and the maximum sum offered.
In case of failure to reach an agreement, Discovery had a plan B to broadcast the Olympics on its Italian FTA channel Nove.