Italy: RAI acquires free-to-air rights to the Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024 Olympics (press)

The Italian public broadcasting group RAI has acquired the free-to-air broadcasting rights in Italy for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics (100 hours of broadcasting) and the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics (200 hours of broadcasting), under sub-license from the American broadcasting group Discovery (parent company of Eurosport), according to the Italian press on 17/12/2021. All that is missing is the validation of the IOC for the agreement to become official.

The value of the agreement for the two editions would be €75m, while Discovery initially claimed €80m and RAI proposed €72m, according to Italian media.

Discovery acquired the European broadcasting rights to the Summer and Winter Olympic Games for the 2018-2024 cycle on 29/06/2015. Discovery then entered into sub-licensing agreements in many markets with public broadcasters for free-to-air broadcasting, such as the agreements with France Télévisions in France (2022 and 2024 editions), the BBC in the UK (2022 and 2024 editions) and ARD and ZDF in Germany (2018 to 2024 editions). Discovery also has free-TV channels in certain…