Eurosport is negotiating 20 fresh new broadcast deals, and is ditching show jumping and other less mainstream content from its programming, according to the channel's CEO. Last week, the Discovery-backed sports channel announced 10 new sports rights deals, including acquiring the Wimbledon tennis rights in Belgium, and Serie A and Ligue 1 in the Netherlands. Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton said, “The biggest one is what we have done in the Netherlands. It fits into the bigger strategy of saying ‘we need to be important in the local market and not judged on a pan-regional basis anymore.' It changes our image in the market.” As an example of Europsort trying to monopolize local markets, the broadcaster now controls the rights to all four tennis Grand Slams in Belgium. This, Hutton said, “changes the impression” to advertisers, adds gravitas to the Eurosport brand, and will be the strategy going forward.
THE NEW DEALS: Eurosport is now negotiating 20 new rights deals thought to be in some of its core sports, including golf, rugby, tennis and football. The string of deals follows Discovery’s move to take a majority stake in Eurosport around a year ago, as it looked to move into sports programming. While smaller than pay-TV rival Sky in the U.K., the financial clout of Discovery, which has a market capitalization of $28B, has led to speculation that Eurosport will now begin to take on Sky and BT for premium rights in the U.K. Hutton, a former journalist who joined Eurosport within the past three months from MP & Silva, said, “We have to look at the big rights. It’s always very difficult to work out exactly how these things will pay for themselves as the numbers are so scary.” Hutton said that Eurosport now evaluates sports rights on whether they will be beneficial to the Discovery business as a whole, pointing to the example of acquiring Champions League rights in Singapore, which he said will help the overall Discovery business in that country.
OPENING NEW TERRITORY: By cross-promoting the Eurosport channels on Discovery channels, a new audience potentially also opens up. Hutton said, “One of the dangers of pay-TV sport generally is you end up preaching to the same audience time and time again.” Eurosport, which launched in '89, is also trying to upgrade the quality of its content, under the guidance of Hutton. “We need to do something different,” admits Hutton, pointing out that Eurosport has traditionally acquired sports content that is also available on free-to-air TV. One recent example is the addition of John McEnroe and Chris Evert to its commentary team during its coverage of the French Open.
MAKING CUTS: As part of its bid to make a more glitzy and premium offering, Eurosport is ditching a raft of content, which it believes is undermining its brand. Sports content that is being ditched includes show jumping, the World's Strongest Man contest and timber cutting. Hutton said these shows were tarnishing the overall Eurosport brand. Eurosport has recently acquired the rights to the athletes Diamond League series, which will include Mo Farah. Referencing the recent BBC Panorama expose that claimed Farah’s coach was a drug cheat, Hutton is not anticipating this having any adverse effects on Eurosport's viewing figures. He said, “Regardless of what happens with Mo Farah, the fact he is there or pulls out of the Diamond League is a big story.”
John Reynolds is a writer in London.
