Discovery Communications chief executive David Zaslav has said the US media and entertainment company is considering exploiting its Olympic rights in Europe for certain niche sports through a direct-to-consumer streaming service.
In June 2015, Discovery and its sports broadcasting subsidiary Eurosport acquired television and multi-platform rights in 50 European markets for four editions of the Olympic Games, from 2018 to 2024, in a deal valued at €1.3bn ($1.45bn). Russia was excluded from the agreement, while the deal applied to the 2022 and 2024 Games only in France and the UK.
Discovery has since been striking sublicensing agreements for the rights, but Zaslav, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York, said the company is exploring different means to exploit the content.
Zaslav said not all the content can be provided via the Eurosport-branded channels, adding Discovery is investigating making individual sports and events available to customers. “We own it all and when we go to the player and charge $8 (€7) per subscriber we’re in a whole different game,” he said, according to the New York Post newspaper. “For us, Eurosport direct-to-consumer fills the full circle of where the world is going.”
He added: “The question is if you love the bobsled, or judo or speed skating, it’s on our three (Eurosport) channels but there is an opportunity to go direct-to-consumer and if you want all the judo you can get it.”
Discovery’s latest Olympic sublicensing deal came last month. RTVS and RTV, the public-service broadcasters in Slovakia and Slovenia, have acquired rights for the 2018 winter Olympics in PyeongChang and the 2020 summer Games in Tokyo.
RTVS and RTV will provide free-to-air and non-exclusive coverage of both events across television and online platforms. The deal included selected digital rights and clips for news programmes.