The failure of Chinese-owned sports rights company MP & Silva, which was valued at more than $1B just two years ago, "has left major leagues owed millions of dollars in the biggest disruption to Europe’s sports industry in 16 years," according to Hellier & Browning of BLOOMBERG. MP & Silva, founded by Italian businessmen Riccardo Silva and Andrea Radrizzani in '04, "hoovered up costly TV rights" for top-flight British, Italian and German football, Grand Slam tennis and Formula 1 to "sell them on to broadcasters for a profit." The company "came to dominate rights auctions" just as Asia's "growing love affair with European sports pushed up the value of the TV concessions." Its "fortunes began to change" after Silva and Radrizzani sold most of the business for $1B to China’s Everbright Securities Co. and internet entertainment company Beijing Baofeng Technology Co. in '16. Trouble emerged earlier this year as MP & Silva "struggled to pay for many of its rights and its journey ended on Wednesday" when London’s High Court dissolved the company, according to sources familiar with the situation. MP & Silva owes around $10M to the Bundesliga, a league source said. Other creditors include F1, the EPL, Serie A and the Int'l Handball Federation, per sources "who did not want to be identified as the matter is not public." The collapse "has forced some of them to re-assign rights to ensure broadcasts continue." A person involved with MP & Silva before the Chinese buyout said that it "ran into problems" after the departures of Silva and Radrizzani, who "used their industry clout and personal connections to seal its biggest deals through the shake of a hand." With the two men gone, "the process became slower and more confused." Compounding the agency's situation, the prices that some European pay-TV companies "were able to pay for sports rights began to decline." Ampere Analysis Research Dir Richard Broughton said, "Increasingly there is less need for intermediaries in the sports rights market. The leagues know all the local broadcasters." Representatives of Everbright Securities and English football authorities "could not be reached immediately for comment" (BLOOMBERG, 10/19).
