Facebook (FB) has hired Eurosport Chief Executive Peter Hutton to lead its multi-billion dollar global sports rights initiative. The move is yet another strong indicator (they bid $600 million for rights to Indian cricket, losing to Star India) that the social networking service sees live sports as a key part of its streaming growth strategy. The hiring appears timely as the deadline to submit bids for the rights to stream the EPL in Europe is Feb 9. Hutton isn’t expected to begin his new role until after the completion of the Winter Olympics though, making Facebook appear to be an unlikely destination for the Premier League now.
Howie Long-Short: Discovery Communications (DISCA) owns Eurosport, the home to the next 4 Olympic Games (through ’24) in most European markets. DISCA paid just $1.44 billion for European rights to the games, across all platforms, which is a fraction of the $7.65 billion NBC is paying for television and online rights to the games through ’32. The company reported Q3 earnings in early November; revenue was up 6% YOY (to $1.65 billion) led by its international portfolio, but net earnings remained flat as U.S. subscriptions continued to decline. CEO David Zaslav said at the time, that the company was looking forward to leveraging the Scripps Networks Interactive portfolio upon the closing of the $14.6 billion acquisition (to occur in early ’18). The company will report Q4 and full-year 2017 financials on February 27th.
Fan Marino: Facebook has decided against bidding on the NFL’s Thursday night package. Noteworthy, as the company has bid on the package in past years and the league’s Sunday (through ’22) and Monday night (through ’21) packages are tied up for the next several years. As for TNF television rights, Fox and Disney (would put games on ABC) are both likely to bid; while CBS & NBC, who shared the rights this year, are looking to pay less (paid $450 million in ’17).
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