The UK operator will receive £633 million from joint venture partner
BT Sport is changing its name to TNT Sports from July after the UK operator finally managed to pull off a deal. It is forming a joint venture with media conglomerate Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) in a deal from which BT will receive £633 million.
In March 2022, BT Sport made an operating loss of £222 million and the WBD joint venture was announced in May 2022, in preference to a deal DAZN with whom it had also been in talks, as well as Amazon, Disney and the UK’s ITV.
BT has been trying to exit the sports broadcasting market since 2021.
The joint venture will combine BT Sport and Eurosport programming. The TNT brand is already used as its sports broadcast brand in Latin America and the US.
Unhappy history
The Eurosport pay-TV channel was launched in 1989, when Rupert Murdoch launched SkyTV. WBD has the option of taking full control of the joint venture up until September 2026 and acquired a 20% stake in Eurosport in 2012 before assuming full ownership from French media group TF1 in 2015.
BT Sport was launched in 2013 with the aim of ending Sky’s dominance of the pay-TV market for sport in the UK by BT’s then CEO, Gavin Patterson shortly after his promotion to that office. BT then paid £900 million for exclusive rights to Champions League games which boosted its customer base to 4 million viewers, but continued to make a loss.
In 2017, after a war of attrition with Sky, the two came to a cross-licensing agreement which undermined BT Sport’s raison d’etre.
The Financial Times [subscription needed} reported in April 2021, when BT announced it was looking for an exit out of the market, that although it had fewer than 2 million subscribers, it cost about £800 million annually and overall was estimated to have cost BT £2 billion.
Marc Allera, head of BT’s Consumer business commented that the deal was a logical step adding, “Once launched, it’ll become a hugely exciting new premium sports offering for customers”.
TNT customers in the UK and Ireland will be offered coverage of the Olympic Games, the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, Premiership Rugby, MotoGP, UFC, Boxing, WWE, tennis Grand Slams, cycling Grand Tours and winter sports.