Olympics Update - to remain on the BBC until at least 2024

But why exclude one country from a pan-European deal? Other European countries also have legislation dealing with listed sports events, so Discovery knew that it would have to keep that in mind when signing sub-license deals (meaning the issues raised by Brekkie probably aren't unique to the UK).

Or an even simpler solution is an open bidding process in which deals aren't done behind people's backs and so that at least the current rights holders are privy to the fact that someone is trying to take the rights away from them.

The version I posted is dated 2014 on the OFCOM website.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/code-sports-events/

That document does also reference the equivalent lists across Europe, all of which are topped by the Olympic Games. If this deal, or indeed any other similarly restrictive deal elsewhere in Europe, is challenged I can see this actually becoming a fairly major EU issue where broadcasting rights and the sovereignty over them is concerned. As I understand it sovereignty lies within each individual country, though of course there have been some notable legal battles mainly regarding copyright and the Premier League which have been ruled upon by Europe.

Depends whether the IOC is a purely commercial operation or one that is aiming to foster the Olympic Ideal... It doesn't ALWAYS have to be about money...

Flawed.
(Telephone call from IOC to BBC Sport)
"Hello BBC Sport, about the UK rights to the Olympics. We've received a bid from Discovery Eurosport."
"It's around £160million for the next 2 Winter and 3 Summer games. We were wondering if you'd like to bid to match or exceed it against them?"

"Hello...Hello? Are you still there?"

So the IOC, headquartered in Switzerland, can't do a deal with Discovery, headquartered in the USA pertaining to the entire EU area? Doesn't sound right to me.


Ultimately the Olympic broadcast rights are the IOCs, regardless of any 'protected' status they might have - they are theirs to do with as they please. Ofcom are not in a position to tell them to provide any broadcaster with them. The IOC have chosen to sell them exclusively, across Europe, to one company. Again, that company cannot be told that they have to supply stuff free of charge/cheaply to the BBC because Ofcom have protected it.

That wasn't what I was saying - I was saying that the bidding process should be open and should take account of individual nation rules governing certain sporting events and should also take into account individual broadcaster's restrictions. I then said that the least the IOC could do is notify the currents rights holders that someone was introducing a bid against them. Furthermore the £160m figure is for across Europe is it not, thus the BBC would not have to outbid £160m unless they intended to show it across the whole of Europe.

But that implies the IOC should have to cater for every single idiosyncrasy in every country. That's a nonsense (and didn't happen under the previous EBU deal)

Instead whoever ends up as the rights holder in a given region needs then to sub-licence them in a manner that allows them to achieve the commercial return that they want in each territory given the laws in that territory. That's what has happened with the BBC deal in the UK.

There is no way the IOC were realistically going to adopt a 'negotiate the rights in every single country separately' approach. That would be a huge amount of work, and wasn't how the rights deals operated in the past.

So you'd set up an auction in the knowledge there would only be 1 bidder?

Discovery took the initiative and made the IOC an offer. They accepted. It's not unconventional in any way.

Though in reality, apart from the current anomaly for 2014-2020, the BBC didn't do the deal with the IOC, the EBU did. I'm not sure I know what the process was that led to the EBU losing rights.

I'm led to believe the previous EBU deal ended because the IOC thought they could get more money by selling the rights to the independent broadcasters than as a group. By only dealing with the EBU the IOC felt the big countries weren't paying as much as they wanted (the smaller countries could continue to pay around what they were to the EBU). It was less the EBU losing the rights and more the IOC refusing to deal with them any more.

..."No, let them pay it. But then we'll give them £110m just to show a couple of events at a time. Oh, and they can have our rights to 2018-20 too."