CEO of the Sport Klub cable TV station, Nemanja Simeunovic, said on Thursday that the cost of TV rights to sports events in the countries of the former Yugoslavia have gone up by as much as 800 percent because of Telekom Serbia.
Simeunovic recalled that the state-owned Telekom Serbia paid 600 million euro for the TV rights to the English Premier League over a period of 6 years after buying the rights to the French football league for 5.5 million euro a season, up from the 600,000 euro per match it paid in previous years. Simeunovic said that real market price for the French football TV rights is under a million.
“Everyone involved with sports broadcasting rights for this region is astounded and disbelieving. Those prices are untenable for any company operating on market principles because that is unprofitable not just for the Balkan countries but for countries much richer than us with greater populations and higher subscription prices. We have drawn attention to the precedent allowed only in Serbia and we expect European competition protection bodies to speak out so that the Serbian public can learn who approved the waste of money in their name,” he said.
Telekom Serbia’s acquisitions were also reported by Sport Business Media news service which covers TV rights for sports events at global level. It said that BeIN Media Group secured a monstrous raise for the rights to the French top football league in the Balkans over the next three seasons as part of one of the most lucrative deals for that league’s TV rights.
BeIN, the media distributor for French football internationally for six seasons (2018/19 to 2023/24) will get 5.5 million Euro a season from Telekom Serbia for the 2021-24 seasons.
400% increase for Italian Serie A
The media have also reported that the InFront Company also secured a huge price rise for Italian Serie A rights with Telekom Serbia which agreed to pay 25 million euro a season from 2021/22 to 2023/24. That is an increase of 400% from the 5 million euro that the Serbian state-owned telecommunications giant paid for each of the previous three seasons.
LaLiga reported a 40% increase in the price of broadcasting rights, to 12.5 million euro a season.
(Danas, 10.02.2022)
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