BT enters exclusive talks with Discovery on BT Sports | BT

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BT has entered exclusive talks with the US pay-TV giant Discovery to create a joint venture business that will include BT Sport, which has rights to sports including the Premier League and Champions League.

The joint venture, which BT expects will be operational later this year subject to regulatory approval, ends almost a year of uncertainty over the future of the telecoms company’s decade-old pay-TV sport operation.

The decision to combine with Discovery, which in the past has considered bidding for the UK TV rights to the Premier League, is a blow to the sports streaming business Dazn.

Backed by the billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik, Dazn, dubbed the “Netflix of sports”, had pushed hard for a deal to buy BT Sport to fuel its plans to grow in the UK.

“The proposed joint venture with Discovery would create an exciting new sports broadcasting entity for the UK and would act as a perfect home for our BT Sport business,” said Marc Allera, chief executive of BT’s Consumer division. “With a shared ambition for growth, as well as the combination of our world class sports assets along with Discovery’s premium sports and entertainment content, our customers will benefit from even more content in more places.”

BT, which has had to seek clearance from the Premier League and Champions League to push through the change in ownership, has also extended a reciprocal channel supply deal with Sky that is crucial to its sports broadcasting business until 2030.

The telecoms company has spent billions on sports rights to drive the growth of BT Sport since it was launched a decade ago to stem the loss of millions of broadband customers enticed by its rival Sky’s offers bundling internet connectivity with sport and entertainment programming.

The business succeeded in its job, although it only has a few million customers and turns just a small profit, and BT is now focused on its £15bn plans to roll out next generation broadband and 5G mobile networks across the UK.

“Today sees two important strategic partnership announcements on how BT moves forward in the fast-evolving content and TV business. The agreement in principle with Sky will provide our customers more choice and more flexibility for the next,” said Philip Jansen, chief decade executive at BT. “Separately, we are excited at the prospect of a new joint venture between BT Sport and Eurosport UK as we enter into exclusive discussions with Discovery.”

Dazn said its plans for the UK remain unfinished but the deal it was discussing with BT Sport was not commercially viable.

“We remain fully committed to growing our business and investing in the UK, as you will see in the near future,” said Kevin Mayer, chairman of Dazn. “On this occasion, however, the deal for BT Sport became uneconomical for Dazn. However, we respect that BT chose a different strategic path and wish BT, BT Sport and Discovery all the best for the future.”

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