BT has confirmed that it has entered exclusive negotiations with Discovery about creating a new 50-50 sports and entertainment joint venture.
If agreed, the move would combine BT Sport and Eurosport's services in the UK, boasting a plethora of sporting rights including the Premier League, Champions League, the Olympics and Winter Olympics, cycling Grand Tours, Premiership Rugby and various tennis Slams.
The mooted new service would be operational by the end of 2022 and would see BT Sport customers also gain access to discovery+, which includes a significant amount of entertainment and factual content.
"The proposed joint venture with Discovery, Inc. would create an exciting new sports broadcasting entity for the UK and would act as a perfect home for our BT Sport business," said Marc Allera, chief exec of BT Consumer.
"With a shared ambition for growth, as well as the combination of our world class sports assets along with Discovery's premium sports and entertainment content, our customers will benefit from even more content in more places."
JB Perrette, president & chief executive of Discovery Streaming & International, added: "We are excited about this opportunity with BT Group to offer consumers a stronger and simplified combined sport offering in the UK and Ireland, and, more broadly, to advance our strategy of bringing sports and entertainment to more consumers on the platform of their choice.
"We are aligned with BT Group on a shared vision to maximise the value and appeal of our respective UK sport assets, and we look forward to concluding a deal in the coming weeks."
BT had been looking into options for BT Sport for the last year and had been exploring an outright sale of the division to DAZN, although the streaming service pulled out of talks this week, saying that the deal had become "uneconomical".
Neil Wilkes
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