Discovery Communications (DISCA) controls the exclusive rights to broadcast the 2018 Winter Olympics (+ the ’20, ’22 and ’24 Games in Paris) across Europe (excluding Russia) and will use the Pyeongchang Games to introduce a new interactive streaming platform that has been described as Europe’s “Netflix for sports”. Eurosport Player will offer fans of the Olympics the ability to watch “every minute, every athlete and every sport, live and on-demand”; enabling the company to aggregate a wide variety of viewing data (across all platforms, both live and catch-up), as it works towards the launch of a DTC subscription service for “superfans” of niche sports. DISCA will air the ’18 Games on linear television, across the continent (50 countries), on its Eurosport (think ESPN) channel.
Howie Long-Short: In 2015, DISCA paid $1.6 billion for the next 4 Olympic Games (including $180 million for the ’18 Games), but company CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels says the games won’t impact full-year profits; lucrative content licensing agreements (i.e. BBC, Amazon in select countries) have already helped the company recoup much of its commitment. Of course, DISCA is on the hook for just a fraction of the $7.65 billion NBC agreed to pay for U.S. TV and online rights through ’32.
Fan Marino: Alibaba (BABA) has launched its first “major branding effort” with the Olympic games (part of a 10-year partnership), a 3-ad story-telling campaign meant to showcase the company globally. While one ad focuses on the company’s values and history championing small businesses, the other 2 convey true Olympic tales; one of a rower who stopped in the middle of a race to let ducks pass and another of a Kenyan Ice Hockey team that had previously never experienced ice. Get your tissue boxes ready.
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