World Cup: "The exploding cost of TV rights [...] is not sustainable" (J. Raynaud, Sky Sport)

"In recent World Cups we have seen hyper-inflation in the pricing of broadcast rights. For 2018, we have not yet made a decision, but we have to evaluate this, in light of the exploding cost of TV rights, which, at this time, is not sustainable," said Jacques Raynaud, the executive vice-president of the Italian pay-TV group Sky Sport, on 15/07/2014. He was answering a question about whether or not Sky Sport would acquire the broadcast rights for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

Sky Italia had the broadcast rights in Italy for the entire 2014 World Cup (Brazil, 12/06 to 13/07/2014). The Italian telecommunications group Rai also had broadcast rights for 25 of the 64 fixtures.

Sky, which has the totality of domestic broadcast rights for Serie A for 2012-2015, extended on only a portion of these rights for 2015-2018; it aquired the right to broadcast eight of the best teams of the league for €357m per season.

• Sky Italia is in competition with Italian free- and pay-TV broadcasting company Mediaset (owned by Silvio Berlusconi), which acquired the broadcast rights to all the matchdays of the…